




ORATION 



POEM, AND SPEECHES, 



DELIVERED AT THE 



SECOND ANNUAL MEETING 



ASSOCIATED ALUMNI, 



I>iLCIFIC CO^ST, 



At Oakland, California, June 6th, 1865, 



PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION. 




SAN FRANCISCO: 

PRINTED BY TOWNE AND BACON 

1865. 




/ 



ORATION, 



POEM, AND SPEECHES 



DELIYEKED AT THE 



SECOND ANNUAL MEETING 



OF THE 



ASSOCIATED ALUMNI, 



or THE 



F^CIFIO CO^ST, 



At OaMandf California, June 6th, 1865» 



PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION. 



SAN FRANCISCO: 

PRINTED BY TOWNE AND BACON 

1865. 



v^ 



?.A>» 



^^ 



%\d 



^ 






PREFACE 



AccoRDiNa to an appointment made at a General Alumni Meet- 
ing of 1864, a meeting was held in Oakland, March 7th, 1865, to 
make arrangements for a Uke gathering this year, and to secure a 
plan for a permanent organization. Rev. S. H. WiUey, Prof. M. 
Kellogg, Rev. L. Hamilton, Edward Tompkins, Esq., John W. 
Dwinelle, Esq., H. Gibbons, M.D., and Rev. H. A. Sawtelle were 
appointed a Committee of Arrangements. This Committee per- 
formed the duties devolved upon it, and issued invitations to all 
whose names were on its List of Graduates. They also prepared a 
Constitution for a permanent organization, which was presented at 
the meeting called on June 6th. 

This meeting was held, after due notice in the public prints, in 
the College Chapel, at Oakland, at half-past one, p.m. John W. 
Dwinelle, Esq., was called to the chair, and H. B. Livingston, 
Esq., appointed Secretary. 

The Committee then presented their draft of a Constitution for 
a permanent organisation. This Constitution was taken up, article 
by article, amended and adopted. 

The organization then proceeded to the choice of officers for the 
ensuing year, whose names wiU be found appended to the Constitu- 
tion, page 6. The meeting then adjourned, to meet at the call of 
the officers of the Association. 

At a meeting of the Executive Committee, thanks were voted 
to the Orator and the Poet, and copies of their productions were 
requested for pubhcation. 



4 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

The Secretary of the Association would call especial attention to 
the list of Graduates here^with published. It is still incomplete, 
particularly in the names of Graduates of Professional Schools. 
Additions and corrections are sohcited. 



CONSTITUTION 



OF THE 



ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 



ARTICLE I. 

The name of this organization shall be, " The Associated Alumni of the 
Pacific Coast." 

ARTICLE IL 
Its members shall be — 

1st. Graduates of Colleges, Universities, and Institutions of Collegiate rank; 
of Law, Medical, and Theological Schools ; and of the United States 
Military and ^aval Schools. 
2d. Honorary Members, who, after election, shall be entitled to the full 
privileges of membership. 
All members must enroll their names. 

ARTICLE III. 
The officers of this Association shall be — 
1st. A President. 

2d. A Secretary, who shall also be Treasurer. 

3d. An Executive Committee, consisting of the President, the Secretary, 
and three others. 
These officers shall be elected annually. • ^|p 

ARTICLE IV. 

There shall be annual meetings of the Association — 
1st. The place — with the College of Cahfornia. 
2d. The time — Commencement Week. 

ARTICLE V. 

At each annual meeting there shall be — 
1st. An Oration and a Poem. 
2d. A Supper, and such other exercises as the Executive Committee direct. 

ARTICLE VI. 

Each member shall, on enrolling his name, pay an initiation fee of three dollars, 
and afterwards an annual tax of one dollar. 

ARTICLE VII. 

This Constitution may be amended at any annual meeting, by a vote of two- 
thirds of the members present. 



OFFICERS. 



President. 

JOHN W, DWINELLE, Esq. 

Secretary and Treasurer. 

Prof. MARTIN KELLOGG. 

Executive Committee. 
JOHN W. DWINELLE, Esq., S. J. CLAEK, Esq , 

EDWARD TOMPKINS, Esq., Eev. S. H. WILLEY, 

<# Prof. M. KELLOGG. 



ALUMNI EXERCISES. 



I. ORATION AND POEM. 



The afternoon exercises were held in the Congregational Church, 
where a large and appreciative audience was in attendance. 

Gen. James Wilson presided. Prayer was offered by Rev. 
I. E. DwiNELL, D.D., of Sacramento. 

The Oration and Poem were as follows : 

ORATION. 

BY REV. HORATIO STEBBINS. 

Mr, Chairman^ and Friends of Learning: 

If it is true, that the movement of time and events reveals to 
the philosophic observer the working of an intelhgent Power ; if it is 
true, that mingled in the stream of human things there is a steady, 
persistent force, which reason calls a purpose, to occupy this earth, 
and subdue it wholly to the powers of intellectual and moral being, 
the presence of this concourse here to-day, around this fresh foun- 
tain of learning, as it gushes from the earth, is happy support to 
the philosophic faith. 

If we needed other indorsement of our firm conviction, we 
might find it in the events of our time. We live in an era which 
history will record as crowned with Providential honors. It is 
given to us, men of the present age, to stand upon a grand emi- 
nence, which overlooks the conflict between the opposuig spirits 
of an epoch. In that conflict the powers of good and the powers 
of evil have had a distmct, emphatic, intelligible expression — such 
as awakened the sympathies of mankind, and classified the world 
into friends or foes of human progress. If the better instincts of 



8 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

men are any guide to truth ; if the last result of the life of man- 
kind is the best pubhc sentiment of Chiistendom ; if there is any- 
thing in the cumulative conviction of the world, that the human and 
divine are mingled — then the historian, from the high serene of 
retrospect, will record that the civil war in America was new testi- 
mony of God in history. 

The idea of an inteUigent, presiding power in the life of 
humanity, inspiring nations and men, has its historic fountains m 
the hills of Palestine. Isaiah preached it, and hailed mankind 
from the mountain-tops of a subhme faith. David sung it, and 
voiced his human soul by it in all the pathos of woe, and courage, 
and exultation, and despair. That mountahi stream in Judea has 
risen to a mighty flood, whose deep and solemn flow is the Hfe of 
the race. The faith which has descended in illustrious line from 
the initial Founder of the Theocratic Stock, has passed into the 
convictions of mankind, and in our land there are untold millions 
who feel that they see the events of our era moving in the sweep 
and rythm of Providence. There are times of fulfillment when this 
great conviction is vindicated, and the long summer that ripens 
God's events perfects the fruits of Time and History. Then the 
exalted imagination kindled with enthusiasm of good, sees the uni- 
verse in divine sympathy — the sun stands still upon Gibeon, and 
the moon in the Valley of Ajalon ; all the powers of Nature are 
enlisted under our banners — chmates, moimtains, and rivers are our 
allies ; night and darkness befriend us, the procession of the year 
is our vanguard, and all the seasons hail and cheer us as we pass. 
The ocean girds our cause with its protecting wisdom and mystery ; 
and the very stars are our sentmels — marching to and fro upon the 
nightly plain, warning off" all bad powers of the nether worlds by 
the heavenly secret of their watch-word. There are times when 
man's consciousness of the divme Providence is so marked, and 
clear, and striking, that the universe itself seems articulate expres- 
sion of God ; and events are acts in the great drama of the Al- 
mighty Will. 

But whether we allow the poetic exaggeration, or turn to pas- 
sionless philosophy, we are urged to the same conclusion — the only 
conclusion to which the human mind can come without violation of 
its own laws — that man alone cannot make history, neither unfold 
the collective life of nations and the race. 



ORATION. y 

Standing here, then, on this last and inevitable conclusion, 
every nation has a theme, an idea, of which it is the unconscious 
depositary, and which is developed and comes to recognition in the 
progress of events, is brought forward in the intelligence of men, 
and stands at length as their guiding thought and central power. 
A popular statement of this same thing apphed to our American 
life, calls it coming to self-consciousness, and seizing the theme of 
our national existence. It is said that thus far, we have hved a 
kind of exuberant youth, full of unregulated powers, not toned to 
patient self-direction, or compassed in firm, well-defined personality. 
Even as an artist gains final possession of himself in the unfolding 
of the art Consciousness, and has all his powers in hand only on 
that condition, so a nation matures to the theme that underlies its 
life, and compasses its own idea as a historic providential power. 

What tokens are there of the presence of such a theme in the 
life of the Republic, hidden, indeed, from the founders, but which 
we are beginning to grasp in a well-defined nationality — having 
read our principles by the light of burning towns ? 

The colonization of America was the fruit of the Reformation. 
Although many other causes conspired to the great end, they were 
possible only through the spirit of religious liberty, as against a 
faith that was dead. Therefore, if we run along the eastern shore 
of the continent, from ofi" Cape Breton, where Gilbert, overwhelmed 
in midnight waters, encouraged his crew by the assurance that 
" Heaven is as near by sea as it is by land," to Espiritu Santo 
Bay, where the prayers of the devout adventurers were mingled 
with the baying of blood-hounds, which they had brought to scent 
their human game, we look in vain through all the latitudes, till 
the ocean, dashing on Plymouth Rock, sounds the key-note of 
American civilization, and gives the mighty theme of history ! 

It is not my duty to eulogize the forefathers — we are inter- 
ested in them only as depositaries of a purpose which they them- 
selves did not know, and by which " Truth got famous victory." 
It may be said, however, in passing, that men who hold, uncon- 
sciously, a principle greater than they know, cannot be fairly esti- 
mated until time has given opportunity for that principle to be 
displayed on a theater appropriate to its magnitude. Such men 
are to be judged by the light of two ages — the age in which they 



10 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

lived, and the age in which their truth Hves. The one shows them 
as they were among men bearing the impress of their time ; the 
other shows them as they were above their time, the subjects of an 
inspiration which the world had not reached. 

But the striking aspect of our country's history, as it layed in 
the seed-plot of their purpose, is, that they contemplated no mighty 
influence, such as followed from their principles, or from any prin- 
ciples incidental to theirs. They never laid the plan — much less 
dreamed of its fulfillment. It is a great mistake to ascribe to them 
the honor of conceiving the glory of free institutions. There is no 
good reason for behoving that they contemplated a social system, 
such as we enjoy. We often hear it said, or see it written, in 
generous enthusiasm of admiration, that the fathers of New Eng- 
land led a democratic movement — as if that purpose was mature 
in their minds. They did no such thing ; they had no pohtical 
purpose ; it was theologic and religious, and the form of their social 
or municipal arrangement was incidental to this. These devout 
people, who had escaped from a faith which had well-nigh crystal- 
ized around the human soul, wanted a resting place. They caUed 
themselves pilgrims when they went to Holland, because they knew 
that they could not stay, their children exposed among " swear- 
ing, Sabbath-breaking Dutchmen." It was a religious movement, 
not democratic. They had not even conceived that religion is 
democratic. The secret of their power, and their claim of honor 
is, that they held a Providential purpose greater than they knew. 

The same limitations must be set also to much that is said con- 
cerning their establishment of religious hberty. That they sought 
religious liberty for themselves — ^hberty to hold and exercise their 
own opinions — there can be no doubt ; neither can there be any 
doubt that they never intended to tolerate any opinions different 
from their own. They believed that the man who was willing to 
tolerate all opinions, as the counterpart and complement of His right 
to enjoy his own, was ready to hang God's Bible at the devil's gir- 
dle. In short, they behoved that toleration was a crime ; and they. 
God-fearing and reverent men, did not come to the north-east coast 
in the winter to establish a crime ! They came to enjoy their own 
opinions, where they supposed ttere would be no opinions beside 
their own. They did not come to estabhsh religious liberty — they 



ORATION. 11 

intended no sucli thing. They sought an asylum for themselves, 
and not fox anybody else, as a host of witnesses whose ears they 
clipped, and whose tongues they bound, will testify. They were 
martyrs for the truth themselves, and, as a great writer profoundly 
remarks, probably no man ever suffered martyrdom who would not 
inflict it upon another. The puritans proclaimed their own religious 
right, but they proclaimed more than they knew, and were thus the 
instruments of ideas above themselves. 

Their liberty of conscience also was of the same kind, and sub- 
ject to the same limitations, as it lay in their toinds. Their con- 
sciences were offended at the prayer-book, the Te Deum, lawn 
sleeves, wedding-rings, holy water, and the sign of the cross ; and 
when these things were imposed on them by royal authority, they 
did intend to resist the oppression or flee from it, that they might 
worship God with a pure conscience. But they did not intend to 
defend or allow anybody else in the same privilege, as many gibbets 
testify, creaking under the weight of strangled Quakers. And 
does any man ask what tokens of American idea, and historic theme 
of the Repubhc, Puritanism bears amid these great limitations of 
thought in the actors ? I answer, their principle was greater than 
they thought — and though they did not intend to found a democratic 
state, in their unconsciousness they laid its corner-stone, and were 
the architects of a future age. They did not intend religious lib- 
erty, but their claim for themselves, when expanded to its breadth, 
included the rights of man by that divine law, according to which 
rights are the privilege of all moral creatures. 

If we pass from the Pilgrim Fathers to the Fathers of the Rev- 
olution, we shall find that they too were the providential trustees of 
pruiciples beyond their grasp. The remonstrance and resistance of 
the colonies did not contemplate separation or independence at first, 
and England, through want of magnanimity, lost forever the title of 
Mother Country. If England was our mother, if she had treated 
this nation as a dutiful child that had come of age deserved, it 
would have changed the course of modern history and the destinies 
of the English race on the globe. But the independence and union 
of the colonies, which we are accustomed to speak of as the result 
of the wisdom of the founders of the Constitution, were more in 
the nature of a happy accident. They intended to do no such 



12 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

thing, and yet they could not well have done otherwise. Th^ir 
noble remonstrance against the injuries and insults inflicted by the 
home government, their assertion and claim of rights, involved prin- 
ciples not fully developed, which led them on, until at the close of 
an exhausting war, they found themselves the advocates and defend- 
ers of a popular hberty which found its chief obstruction in a sys- 
tem of human slavery which they themselves had cherished, and 
could not quite let go. Yet so striking was the contradiction be- 
tween their principles and their practice, and so firmly did they 
believe in the finii ascendency of their principles, that they took 
refuge in the expectation that slavery would decline and die, allow- 
ing it only on sufferance. It was that well-grounded expectation 
that saves the Constitution of the United States from beuig a dis- 
grace to history. For the men of the Eevolution to have sat down 
and framed a system of government in the name of hberty, con- 
sigmng a race to perpetual bondage, would have been a contradic- 
tion inconceivable only in the darkest periods of human ignorance 
and wrong. But the Eevolution awoke principles which carried 
men beyond themselves, and quickened their sense of justice, and 
so enlarged the domain of human rights, that they included all men. 
In all these movements, man is the iastrument of ideas above him- 
self, and little dreams of the vast unexplored realm to which he is 
led. In all uprisings of popular sentiment ; ui all appeals to the 
human heart; in all statements of human rights, men commit 
themselves unwittingly to nobler things than they are accustomed. 
Accordingly, the Revolutionary Fathers, at the estabhshment of the 
Constitution, found themselves in possession of ideas concerning 
government and human rights, of which they had no conception at 
the beginning. Instead of humble prayers at the foot of the throne, 
that they might be allowed the pri\dleges of Englishmen, and share 
the glory of the empire, they proclaimed a theory of human rights 
which committed them and their posterity forever to the cause of 
mankind. The heroic age of the country was more than an age of 
local anti-slavery — it was the age of man as the subject of free 
government ; and the firm and temperate anti-slavery of Washing- 
ton and Jefferson was but the accident of free principles of world 
empire. The theme or historic idea of the country was developed 
unconsciously in the revolutionary period, and the founders of the 



ORATION. 13 

Constitution grasped it as the inauguration of a new era of human- 
ity. Of that era and that idea, Washington was the appropriate 
embodiment and personification. A good man, successful in a great 
cause, teaching that moderation and civil duty are greater than 
military exploit, and that the great powers held for the public good 
may be exercised without a selfish thought and laid down without a 
stain. Oh, bright first-born of American thought, and first-fruits 
of them that slept ! 

But the country was to descend from this great eminence, to 
be led in low and devious wanderings, among cheap pohcies and 
mercenary devices. The revolutionary age did not perpetuate 
itself beyond the period of Jackson. Already the principles of 
the government as revealed to the Fathers, was neglected for the 
near by and immediate expediencies of the hour. The elective 
presidency difiused its poison through the living form of politics, 
causing the whole system to throb with selfish passions, and 
awakening an unnatural appetite for whatever stimulated the low 
ambitions of men. For forty years the country, with perhaps two 
or three exceptions, produced no statesman who spoke habitually 
to the principles of government, but politicians rather, who pro- 
jected measures for the manufacture of public sentiment. Even 
Henry Clay, the consummate orator, and popular chief and patriot 
as he was, treated the country as a quack doctor treats a patient, 
by symptoms, to keep the family quiet, and conceal his own 
ignorance of the disease. The great Compromise in which it was 
thought there was so much of human wisdom and foresight, and 
which commanded the respect of good and honest men, was super- 
ficial and absurd, in respect of the principles of the Government, 
as to send a cobbler to patch the Phidian Zeus, or to ordain a 
marriage between an eagle and a bison. True, the Government 
exists as things human do by compromises. But the compromises 
are for the sake of the principles, and not the principles for the 
sake of the compromises. " The public service is the noblest of 
vocations, but it is the meanest of trades." And the age of com- 
promises was the age of measures and expedients, and schemes, 
and enterprises for the management and control of the country, and 
not for the development of its central powers. Slavery, at home 
on the auction-block, bid in all mercenary interests, and invested 



14 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

them in her cause. " The country was made for white men," and 
liberty meant the right to oppress and insult somebody for ever and 
ever. The fairest embodiment, exponent, or personification of this 
period was Stephen Arnold Douglas, a man of strong behef but 
weak convictions. The surface of human affairs attracted his 
attention and satisfied his aspirations. He was American, and he 
was patriotic, but his nature lacked theme. He united in himself 
what was good and what was bad in American pohtics, and he 
beheved in the bad as heartily as he believed in the good. It 
does not appear that he ever had any clear conception that this 
Government must become homogeneous to survive. His life was 
spent in the degraded era of the Republic, in which to make and 
unmake measures, was the vocation of pubhc men. He was the 
best and fairest expression of the period as a politician, while 
Roger B. Taney was the natural expression of its judicial reason. 

But during all this period the folly and madness of men carried 
unknown to them a thought of wisdom and justice. The great 
increase of our geographic area, by which our boundary lines were 
changing every day, and new States were marked out on the con- 
tinent, awakened a power on the one hand, and developed a weak- 
ness on the other, which made the projectors of evil the ministers 
of good. It developed the true fife of the country in showing that 
it is the prerogative of freedom to colonize new States, and be the 
mother of Republics. Freedom only can give self-reliance and 
self-control, the two indispensable requisites to young communities. 
Thus was shown that the long-breathed and patient powers of 
progress were on the side of liberty, and slavery was hopelessly 
distanced, and showed symptoms of low distress in a race of its own 
choosing and appointment. 

But not only was this high demonstration of the country's cause 
concealed amid the plots of a degraded age. The schemes of 
territorial aggrandizement have unfolded in continental breadth, 
and given a theater of worthy and unparalleled grandeur for the 
display of free principles. Small communities and narrow domain 
can never present human affairs on a scale which shall command the 
consent of the world. If free principles are the truth of the social 
state and the hope of mankind, they must be displayed on a scale 
of cosmopolitan grandeur, stretching through climates and zones. 



ORATION. 15 

Therefore, standing to-day upon the very outer verge and rim of the 
Republic — on soil which Slavery herself could not colonize when 
she had got it, I rejoice, and find new cause of gratitude in the 
providential signals that in the very limitations of evil are set the 
foundations of indestructible good. The theme of the country's 
life and glory has been pursued, in the machinations of evil councils, 
and bad men have been made to cast the loaded dice of God 1 

The continent then is ready to receive the truth of the country 
as it emerges from the civil war. Never was a nation led forward 
at such a pace ! Never were the thoughts, and opinions, the con- 
victions of men so modified by time and events ! Never was the 
historic idea of a country so justified from Puritanic rigor to dem- 
ocratic trust. "When we were struck in the face by a mob we went 
forth, not thinking it was war. The Government went out to quell 
an insurrection — to repossess its forts and arsenals, and to enforce 
the laws. We proclaimed that we had nothing to do with the 
black race but hold it where it was. The highest issue was to 
restore the country to the theory of the Fathers. But the theory 
of the Fathers was greater than we knew, and could not be put 
back where they left it. The war, finding at length the theme of 
the Government, has developed its own policy and thunders forth 
the Nation's purpose of freedom to man. This increasing convic- 
tion of the American people under the motion of powers which 
they could not control, is a most important era m the historic 
development of its life. It puts the Nation in full possession of its 
idea. That idea is humanity — not as a sentiment or a provincial- 
ism of thought — not a village morality — nor a kind prejudice ; — 
but the conception of a divine power, by which God is ever en- 
churching himself in the human race. A many-sided world-round 
humanity, whose habitation God hath appointed, that they might feel 
after Him if haply they might find Him. 

Need I say that Abraham Lincoln, the lawyer of Hhnois, was 
the personification of this increasing era of our country ? A man 
whom the people had taken as the providential man, and who 
esteemed himself only to have followed the lead of events. A man 
in whose magnanimous, trusting nature and unre vengeful soul was 
vested all the mercy which was left in the wide world, for those who 
would destroy the Repubhc, so that when his noble heart ceased to 



16 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

beat, every spark of human pity for them was extinguished ! It 
was a new revelation in our breasts, of the possibility of loving a 
man made loveable because his nature was permeated with the spirit 
of the country's cause. To love the President of the United States ; 
to see in that sad, resigned face, and deep mild eyes, the tokens of 
the paternal care he bore for the country ; to beheve in his honest 
heart, his wise, careful judgment, and to feel that you could bend 
with tender pity, and love, and tears, and kisses, over his meek and 
lowly form ! Surely this is a new experience for this generation ! 
Never, never has the country's idea been so personified before ! 
From the day he left his home in Springfield to go to the house 
which the people had built, he displayed those quahties which make 
a man the recipient of the spirit of an era. Thoroughly American, 
he united in his own nature whatever was good in American ideas 
and institutions. Those ideas, as they stood forth clearer and 
clearer in the movement of events, found in him their natural ally, 
and were the increase of his own being. He is the only President 
within the memory of the present generation of men who improved 
in breadth and power of character during his reign. He preserved 
his simphcity, and lost not his sagacity. He took counsel of others, 
and yet he swayed superior men by the steady weight of his upright 
reason. He befieved in the country, in the men who make the 
country, the plain people who have homes and fire-sides, and a fair 
inheritance of many affections under the protection of good gov- 
ernment. He believed in the final ascendency of good ; that evil 
has a check and hindrance by which it is forever kept from the 
throne of the universe. He beheved that justice and truth were 
even nothing less than the right reason and common sense of God, 
and that to pursue them with fearless and undoubting simplicity, 
was keeping in hearing distance of the Almighty. Living as he 
did, the leader in a great social convulsion which must modify the 
condition of man over the whole globe, his own character and pow- 
ers unfolding with the providential spirit of events, partaking as he 
did in a most remarkable degree the power and motion of the ideas 
of an era, he became their embodiment and personification. Espe- 
cially to the negro race, whose aspirations he voiced, and whose 
long-delayed justice he pronounced, amid the thunder and hght- 
nings of a nation's power ; to that race he stands the ideal figure, 



POEM. 17 

immortal deliverer, righteous and merciful judge. To this end it 
was good that he should be lifted up above the hmitations of this 
life, above the passions of the hour, the localism of human powers, 
to the realm of immortals, the realm of ideas, of thoughts and prin- 
ciples, and from that exalted place, to sway the hearts of a new- 
born race, and to be their leader and guide to the remotest age. 
This he could not have been, had he lived to preside over the war, 
and with the return of peace to have found quiet and rest. He fell 
a victim, as we call it on our human side ; but he was glorified in 
the ideas of an era, and the world was drawn unto him in his 
exaltation. 

The progress of the world, the movement of history, is marked 
bj man's advance to larger powers of intelligence and freedom ; 
and the men who have been the exponents of the providential pur- 
pose, are recorded as leaders, captams, deliverers. Thus God keeps 
an unbroken line of heroes, and martyrs, and saints, and is never 
cut off from the heavenly base. 



POEM 



MAN, THE SPIRIT. 

BY EDWARD ROWLAND SILL, ESQ. 

A SMALL, swift planet, glunmering round a star, — 
A molten drop with thinnest crusted shell 
Of lime and flint, roofed-in with azure air, — 
A winding stair of life, from Trilobite 
And Saurian up to one who walks their king, 
Drawing the hme and. flint up through themselves 
And kindhng them to spirit, till on him, 
Whose limbs are clay, there flames a lambent crown 
Of fire from heaven, — these make our world. 

\¥hat then 
Is this wild creature, wandering up and down. 
Seeking a thousand things, but keeping still 
A thought of God in his heart ? Why is he here, 
Feet in the sod and thoughts among the stars, 



18 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

Bewildered for some watchword or command, 
As a battalion wavering on the field 
Without a leader ? In the march of w^orlds 
Is Earth alone forgotten ? 

Who are we, 
Clustered to-day with eyes and hands that clasp 
As by some secret oath of brotherhood, 
Out of the mass that jostles to and fro 
Forever, without aim or hope ? We are pledged 
To UNDERSTAND, to live the truth we know, 
And help men so to live and understand. 
A handful 'gainst a host, we make our stand. 
Nailing this thesis on the golden gate 
Of the new Mammon-temples — that the souls — 
The striving, praying, hoping, human souls — 
Alone on earth are valuable — their end 
To will God's will, because their will belongs 
To him, the maker and the giver, so 
Dilating to the broader destiny 
Whose shadowy gateway opens from our world. 

Out of the wrinkled bosom of the Old, 
New England once was born ; a rock-hewn race, 
Puritan pilgrims, splendidly pure and grim. 
Flint-set against all sham, they rose to say 
'T was sunrise and the ghosts must vanish now 
Before the living Fact : that a king's crowned head 
Was but a man's head, and it must come off 
Like any beggar's, when it wrought a wrong. 
They freed society, the individual man 
We must emancipate ; they stripped all masks. 
And knocked the fool's-caps off the venerable heads 
Of church and state, and tore their pompous robes 
To strings for children to fly kites with. 

Here 

Upon a coast whose calmer-blossoming surf 
Beats not with such an iron clang as theirs^ 



POEM. 19 

We plant the Newer England ; this our word, 

That man is no mere spider-Uke machine 

To spin out webs of railroads after him 

In all earth's corners, nor a crafty brain 

Made to knit cunning nets of politics 

Or sharpen down to insignificance 

On the grinding wheels of business, but a Soul, 

That travelling higher worlds in upper Hght 

Dips down through bodily contact into this ; 

As a hand trails over a boat's side through the waves, 

And seems to the sea-creatures, eyed alone 

For their own element, a thing of the sea. 

Whether he wear the purple or the serge. 

Whether he worship under frescoed pomp 

Or bare-hewn rafters, it is still the man, 

The individual spirit, something far 

Beyond earth's chemistry, to whom all else 

Ate only foot-lights, scene, accessory. 

Or nothing — or a farce, a mockery. 

In this fair land, whose fields lie robed in bloom, 
A living poem bound in blue and gold, 
With azure flowers like little flecks of sky 
Fallen, tangled in the dew-drops, to the grass. 
And orange ones — as if the wealth below 
Had blossomed up in beaten flakes of gold ; 
Where all the baser elements of earth. 
Aspiring up through root, and stalk, and leaf. 
Stand stretching delicate petal-wings toward heaven, 
Poised on their slender feet for flying ; here 
Nature, like amorous Cleopatra, plots 
To hold her Caesar, brimming every sense 
With perfume, song, and gorgeous coloring. 
Throws softly-wooing winds about his neck. 
With sparkling air (as the' not pearls alone, 
But diamonds were dissolved in it,) still fires 
His brain to seek new dalHance, fresh dehght 
Forgetful of his throne beyond the Sea. 



N 
20 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

Content Trith the golden Present, now, thej say. 

We must pore in the past no longer ; our old books, 

And antique, moss-gTOwn system must give way 

To the new patent methods for the mind ; 

New patent lives to lead, with no more dreams 

And superstitions, only practical work. 

A callow-winged philosophy breaks shell 

And cackles prematurely loud that we 

Are mummied, gone behind the times ; no more 

Dead languages, nor cloister-life — the lore 

That will not take the harness for their use, 

To weave, or grmd, or burrow-out the mine, 

Smells mouldy to their noses — Sophomores, 

And parvenus of the intellectual world ! 

Who would brush down from heaven the olden stars, 

To set new, self-adjusting spangles there. 

Would mow the everlasting mountains off. 

And build up straight, right-angled ones instead. 

What is our trauiing — what do colleges give 
To men, which makes that feared and sneered-at thing, 
A culture through the classics ? Do we dare 
Keveal the Eleusinian mysteries 
Which leave such impress on these white boy-brows, 
That the world, recognizing kingship, says, 
" Here is a soul that knows itself, who has touched 
The centre, and radiates the broadening beams 
Of influence straight to the point he means " ? 
We cannot, if we would, tell all ; we hold 
Some things there are that never can be told. 

Articulate speech is but a coarse-woven sieve 
That drops the fine gold through ; some subtile chords 
Of swift and ravishing music lurk between 
The written notes. This only we can tell : 
The boy, clear-eyed and beauiifiil-browed, is led 
To a quiet spot arched-over by gi'eat trees. 
And this seal set upon him, — for four years 



POEM. 21 

f 

Sacred from all the tarnishing touch of men ; 

Shut from the jangling of the brazen bells 

That strike the hours of the Present noisily, 

He is bid to listen — and along the years 

Float up the echoes of the Past, the world's 

Birth-songs and marching-music, requiems and prayers. 

He learns the languages that we call " dead," 

(The only living ones, whose fire still glows 

Beneath the ash of every modern tongue), 

The scrolls that men have dabbled with heart's blood. 

Blotted with tears, are his, to learn that all 

Is accident and flying form except the soul. 

The outer husk, the crown, the robes, or rags 

Signify nothing ; Roman, Greek, and Goth, 

Ate, slept, and dreamed, and died, like modern men. 

The audible word is nothing — if the lips 

Prayed Zeus or Allah, Elohim or Lord, 

The heart said still the same. He learns to choose 

The changeless from the changing, as sole good. 

Only the trivial chaff is fanned away, 

As Time's broad wings go sweeping over earth. 

The futile acquisitions of to-day 

Tempt him but little, so the heart grow full 

With inner force and outward-burning fire. 

No surface buckling-on of glittering facts 

His mind would have, but weapons that can make 

The sinewy arm to wield them ; for the sword 

And shield will moulder, but the sinewy arm 

Has many a field to fight beyond this earth. 

Stretched under some cathedral-roof of elm, 
Frescoed in flickering sunlights, with far eyes 
That watch and do not see the summer-sky — 
A cloudy opal, veined as when a wave 
Leaps up, and breaks, and leaves the milk-white foam 
Streaking its meshes over the blue sea — 
Flat to the ground, where he can seem to feel 
The great earth heave beneath him like a ship 



22 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

Plunging its course along the tideless space, 

He whispers with his heart in thoughts like these : 



What may we take into the vast Forever ? 

That marble door 
Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor, 

No fame-wreathed crown we wore, 

No garnered lore. 

What can we bear bejond the unknown portal ? 

No gold, no gains 
Of all our toiHng, in the life immortal 
No hoarded wealth remains, 
Nor gilds, nor stams. 

Naked from out that far abyss behind us 

We entered here : 
No word came with our coming to remind us 

What wondrous world was near. 

No hope, no fear. 

Into the silent, starless Night before us, 

Naked we glide : 
No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us. 

No comrade at our side, 

No chart, no guide. 

Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow, 

Our footsteps fare : 
The beckoning of a father's hand we follow. 

His love alone is there, 

No curse, no care. 



And so we learn our world, finding how time 
Is an illusion — the perspective all 
But a mere trick of shadow, which can make 
That mistj peak seem far beyond the hill 



POEM. 23 

In the foreground — touch it, and you see 
'Tis all one whole ; the Greek stands at our side, 
Toga and sandals shielding the same flesh 
That coat and shoes do now, the same hot brain 
Throbbing beneath the helmet, as the hat. 
As one who hums a tune about his work, 
And hears a friend's voice from another room 
Strike-in an alto, so we hear afar 
The sound of voices all along the Past 
Chording with ours. 'T was onlj yesterday 
That Plato stood and talked with Socrates ; 
'T was last night Paul was here, and on the desk 
Has left his letters which the air has turned 
From parchment into paper for our use. 
In the next room they wait, 't is but a step 
Over the threshold to them there, yet since 
The shadow of the tree of life lies dark 
Across the doorway, like a faltering child 
We dread the passage through the cold, dark ball. 
To where the Father calls, -and they have gone. 

What is the visible, tangible world all worth 
Except for symbols, somewhat coarse and large, 
Like the raised letters for the blind to feel ? 
The shadowy domes serenely lifted up. 
The soundless depths that deepen down in thought, 
Make our small world draw dwindling to a point. 
The little earth ! Think, that the same bright sun, 
Which rises there from the famihar hill 
And laughs its level joy straight to our eyes, 
Is wrapping half the globe in morning light, 
Kindhng dew-diamonds on the tropic palm. 
Tipping the white gull's wing o'er Northern seas 
And striking frozen fire from the iceberg's towers 
At either pole. 

The brisk and dapper minds 
Are doubtless those which have had the practical 
And not the philosophic training, yet 



24 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

When the world wants a great man for great deeds, 

Who ever took the modern-fashioned one, 

Who had learned the " useful" onlj, and eschewed 

Dead languages or dreaming in the woods ? 

The great man ever has caught the sacred fire 

From olden books, or from the older stars, 

In soHtudes, away from bustling streets 

And babbling men. — 

Ah, who can speak of great, 
Nor think of him who was oui' greatest one ? 
Let us wait here, and lay a wreath of song 
Upon his grave. 

Were there no crowns on earth. 
No evergreen to weave a hero's wreath. 
That he must pass beyond the gates of death. 
Our hero, our slain hero, to be crowned ? 
Could there on our unworthy earth be found 

Naught to befit his worth ? 

The noblest soul of all ! 
When was there ever, since our Washington, 
A man so pure, so wise, so patient — one 
Who walked with this high goal alone in sight. 
To speak, to do, to sanction only Right, 

Though very heaven should faU ! 

Ah, not for him we weep ; 
What honor more could be in store for him ? 
Who would have had him linger in our dim 
And troublesome world, when his great work was done- 
Who would not leave that worn and weary one 

Gladly to go to sleep ? 

For us the stroke was just ; 
We were not worthy of that patient heart ; 
We might have helped him more, not stood apart, 
And coldly criticised his works and ways — 
Too late now, all too late — our httle praise 

Sounds hollow o'er his dust. 



POEM. 25 

Be merciful, oh, our God ! 
Forgive the meanness of our human hearts, 
That never, till a noble soul departs, 
See half the worth, or hear the angel's wings 
Till thej go rustling heavenward as he springs 

Up from the mounded sod. 

Yet what a deathless crown 
Of Northern pine and Southern orange-flower, 
For victory, and the land's new bridal-hour, 
Would we have wreathed for that beloved brow ! 
Sadlj upon his sleeping forehead now 

We lay our Cypress down. 

martyred one, farewell ! 
Thou hast not left thy people quite alone, 
Out of thy beautiful life there comes a tone 
Of power, of love, of trust, a prophecy, 
Whose fair fulfillment all the earth shall be, 

And all the Future tell. 

Earth's greatest ones have ever gone so far 
Out on hfe's border-land, that they have caught 
The sound of an infinite ocean, far away, 
Rounding our island-world. But now appear 
These new philosophers, practical, well-informed, 
Assuring us there is no ocean-sound — 
'T is but the roaring in our feverish ears. 
They carry the glimmering lantern of conceit 
Swinging along their path, and see no Night, 
No fathomless, sombre glory of the dark. 
But their own shadows, that seem giant-forms, 
Stalking across the fields and fences -^ they 
That are stumbling pigmies ! 

They will show you God 
And all his universe in a nutshell : see ! 
Pinched in our httle theory like a vice. 
We cleave the nut with a keen hypothesis, 
Whisk ofi" the top — there 't is, convenient 



26 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

For logical handling. " Cannot see ? " then 

You have spoiled your eyes with gazing at the sun. 

Hard, angular, and dry, they pish and pooh 

At all ideas they cannot measure off 

And pack into their iron-bound, narrow brain. 

They '11 not admit the existence of a truth 

Which cannot be expressed in x and ^, 

And solved by their quadratics. Well, they serve 

To show a new phenomenon in the world : 

That a mind, if taken in time, can be transformed 

To a machine of clock-work cogs and wheels, 

Wound up with useful facts, and set away 

On a shelf to go its narrow round of thought, 

And tell us when 'tis noon or supper-time. 

If we get careless through abstraction. So 

All men, even these, have uses. Some to go 

Whirling around the swift circumference. 

Spinning out sparks into the darkling space. 

While some sit staidly at the safe, slow hub. 

And swear there are no radii, and no rim, 

jN'o winged steeds far at the chariot's pole, 

Ko Power that rides, triumphant, terrible. 

What has this new, pert century done for man. 
That it affords to sneer at all before, 
Because it rides its aimless jaunts by steam. 
And blabs its trivial talk by telegraph ? 
What of it ? Are not babes born naked now 
As ever, and go naked from the world ? 
If I am the Ape's cousin, what to me 
Are steam and harnessed lightning, art, and law ? 
If the night comes so soon, what matters it 
If the short day be foul or fair — if Fate 
Rain thunderbolts or roses on our heads ? 
Yea, even 't were some satisfaction then 
To stand and take the thunderbolts, and think 
We are large enough at least to serve as marks 
For the Gods to hurl at. 



POEM. 27 

If there is no key, 
Why puzzle longer with the scribbled scroll 
We blur our eyes on ? But, merciful God, 
If our souls are immortal, forgive 
That we still creep on dusty hands and knees, 
Face downward to the ground, when we might walk 
Erect, and face the heavens, and see Thy stars ! 

We gaze from our separate windows on the Night 
And find our own small faces imaged there 
In the glass, nor ever see the shadowy plain 
Stretching out through the dimness, on and on. 

Splendid beginners, still we toil and fill 
The vestibule of our fives with useless plans, 
With noise of hammer, scafiblding and dust 
And rubbish, building som6 imagined fane 
To worship in through years that never come. 
For life is like the legendary bird 
The Christ-child's hands were moulding out of clay : 
While we are shaping it with eager care, 
We look up startled, for the bird has flown ! 

Ah, if the mind could sometimes be content 
To cease from its male madness, its desire 
To radiate outward, and in passive rest 
Receive from Nature's ever-waiting arms 
Energy, fire, and life ! We blind ourselves 
With briny sweat-drops, even more than tears. 
Ever with burning haste we scorch our souls, 
And set their compass-needles whirring round 
So they can never keenly point to the pole. 
There's such a clash and jar kept up within, 
Hissing of nerve-steam, iron purposes 
Clanging on one another, who can hear 
The sweet, sweet silver voices from afar ? 
Ah, let a man but listen ! Have we not 
Two ears for silence, one small mouth for noise ? 
Listen until we catch the key, and know 



28 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 



Our note, and then chime m — not rave and run, 

And shout our frantic orders, just as though 

We were the leader of the orchestra. 

Not httle separate voices ; could we wait. 

Each in his corner, conning quietly 

His part, the chords would be the sweeter for it. 

Haste, haste, laggard — leave thy drowsy dreams ! 
Cram all thy brain with knowledge ; clutch and cram I 
The earth is wide, the universe is vast — 
Thou hast infinity to learn, — haste ! 

Haste not, haste not, my soul ! " Infinity " ? 
Thou hast eternity to learn it in. 
Thy boundless lesson through the endless years 
Hath boundless leisure. Run not like a slave — 
Sit like a king, and see the ranks of worlds 
Wheel in their cycles onward to thy feet. 



I know a spot beneath three ancient trees, 
A solitude of green and grassy shade, 

Where the tall roses, naked to the knees. 
In that deep shadow wade. 

Whose rippled coolness drips from bough to bough, 

And bathes the world's vexation from my brow. 

The gnarled limbs spring upward airy-free. 

And from their perfect arch they scarcely swerve, 

Like spouted fountains from a dark, green sea 
So beautiful they curve, — 

Motionless fountains, slumbering in mid-air. 

With spray of shadows falhng everywhere. 

Here the Sun comes not like the king of day, 
To rule his own, but hesitant, afraid. 

Forbears his sceptre's goldefi length to lay 
Across the inviolate shade. 

And wraps the broad space like a darkened tent, 

With many a quivering shaft of splendor rent. 



POEM. 29 

Seclusion, as an island still and lone, 

Round which the ocean-world may ebb and flow, 
Unheeded, following fruitlessly the moon, 

And where the soul may go 
Naked of all its vanities and cares. 
To meet the bounteous grace that Nature bares. 

Here stretched at morn I watch the sunrise ray 

That sweeps across the earth like minstrel's hand. 

Waking from all the birds a song of day. 
Caught up from land to land. 

And earth is beautiful and hearts are brave. 

Ere busy Life has waked to claim her slave. 

Each day a pure and velvet-petal'd flower. 

Blooms fresh at dawn, with trembling light bedewn, 

But dull and tarnished at the mid-day hour — 
The noisy, trampHng noon. 

Its beauty soiled with handling. Ever choose 

The virgin morning for the soul to use. 

The wind comes hushing, hushing through the trees 
Like surf that breaks on an invisible beach 

And sends a spray of whispers down the breeze. 
Whispers that seem to reach 

From some far inner land where spirits dwell, 

And hint the secret which they may not tell. 

No garrulous company is here, but books — 

Earth's best men taken at their best — books used, 

With dark-edged paths, and penciled margin-strolces. 
Where friends have paused and mused. 

And here and there beneath the noticed lines, 

Faint zigzag marks like little trailing vines. 

Here what to me are all the childish cares 
That make a Bedlam of the busy world ? 

Each hour that flies some quiet message bears 
Beneath its moments furled. 

Like a white dove, that, under her soft wings. 

Kind thoughts from far-ofi* home and kindred brings. 



30 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

So let us live, not pent in noisy towns, 
But in calm places, watching- all things fair — 
The months following in waves across the fields, 
Each stranding there new flowery pearls and shells ; 
The flocks of shadows nestled 'neath the trees ; 
The laughing brooks, like mischievous children stiU 
Tangling the silver thread of the motherly moon. 
So shall Earth be no more a theatre. 
In which a tragic comedy is played — 
A horrible farce with too real murder in it — 
But a fair field where till the break of day 
Man wrestles with the Angel of his fate 
For an immortal blessing. 

If we knew, 
Father, if we knew we die not, but 
Live on, we should live worthier of thy love : 
So help thy httle ones to know and live : 
That as a shadow which goes reaching forth 
Longer and longer as the sun goes down, 
The soul may stretch forth toward the great Unseen, 
Until the sacred, solemn starhght comes 
Gathering our individual shadows in its own. 



The Benediction was pronounced by Rev. S. H. Willey. 

At the close of these exercises, a procession was formed under 
the direction of F. M. Campbell, Esq., Marshal of the day, and 
marched to the place of the evening's entertainment. 



THE FESTIVAL. 31 

II. THE FESTIVAL. 



The evening exercises were held in the spacious new hall of 
the College School, Edward Tompkins, Esq., President. Among 
the distinguished men present, were Major General McDowell, 
General James Wilson, Professor C. T. Jackson, M. D., Judge 
0. L. Shafter, Judge Wyche, of Washington Territory, and Rev. 
W. B. Brown, of New Jersey. About as many graduates sat 
down to the table as the year previous. After the company had 
done justice to the repast, the speaking began, of which the follow- 
ing is a verbatim report : 

The President. — Brothers : It is now one year since the Asso- 
ciated Alumni of the State of California — or of the Pacific Coast — 
I should say, rather, held their first meeting in this place. It 
was an event of much more than ordinary interest, for it drew 
together, for the first time, within limits extensive as those of a 
mighty empire, the intelligence and the education — not educated, 
not graduated here — ^but that had been gathered from the ends 
of the earth, to find here a home. It was unlike the gatherings 
of educated men in old states and old countries. There they 
come together, hundreds of them, all educated in the same halls, 
each run in the same groove, each educated and formed in the 
same molds, and making up a kind of mutual admiration society — 
each praised the others, and himself at the same time, and went 
home, thinking what a glorious occasion it was. But when we met 
here last year, instead of being all representatives of one school, 
or of one college — all thinking in one groove and moving in one 
revolution — we were made up of the most heterogeneous elements 
that were ever combined together in any community on earth. 
Yale was here with its troops, and Harvard with its forces, and 
Union with its duteous sons, and the Wesley an University with its 
children. Old Dartmouth and Brown, and all the rest — I cannot 
stop to name them — but every one of you knows I mean your 
college, too. [Cheers.] All were here, and each elated a little, 
perhaps, by that sort of spirit that would stand up each for his 



32 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

own ; and swords were drawn, and steel glistened, and it ,was 
altogether the most sparkling, and glowing, and glorious meeting 
that I had ever seen of educated men on earth. [Applause.] And 
I see before me now an assembly that can prove, if it will, what 
was demonstrated then — that the spirit that animates men on such 
occasions need not be all of the earth — earthy, but may be that 
other spirit of mental culture, and intellectual rivalry, that stirs 
men up to higher, and loftier, and nobler utterances of thought 
than were ever aroused by the malign influences that they have 
thought necessary in times past to arouse them to action. 

And so one year has passed, and what a year it has been ! In 
the hurry and speed with which that very whistle that at this 
moment drowns my voice connects itself, the rush of steam that 
has got into all our souls, we do not stop to think, to take our 
bearings, and to see where we are. What has this year brought 
forth ? Has it been one of those nameless, markless periods in the 
passage of time that the historian will merely jot down as 1864-5, 
and leave there ? Or has has it been one that will stand out in 
letters of light and fire for the coming generations to gaze at, as 
we gaze at the marked ages of the past ? In all the ages that are 
gone, you can find no such record as that which history will write 
up when it epitomizes, as with all its ability it must epitomize, the 
mighty events of the year that has now ended. [Applause.] One 
year ago, and although our hearts were lit up by the occasion, and 
we did enjoy — humbly, reverently, as patriots might, that day and 
evening of relaxation — yet there was upon aU our hearts a weight 
and a gloom so threatening that it was all that manhood could bear 
as it looked it in the face. Then vast armies occupied our land ; 
then bloodshed was the order and the rule — not the exception ; then 
our Government, bleeding at every pore, was struggling for its fife ; 
and although hopeful, and its eye fixed steadily on the result that 
has been achieved, yet it was a hope that trembled as it knew 
the mighty burden that it had to carry through to the end that it 
would attain. Every heart was heavy; every eye was sufiused 
with tears, as they thought of the loved ones lost ; the loved ones 
in danger ; the wounds of our country ; the injury to the great 
interests of humanity that we beheved was then going on in our 
land. But it was one of those great occasions, so eloquently 



THE FESTIVAL. 33 

described to-day, when the thought and the occasion of the world 
were greater than it knew. Great results were working out, and 
we had not worked up to them. We were the instruments for their 
accomplishment, but we knew not what we were doing ; and this 
year, this memorable year, has developed them all. This year the 
hatchet is buried. Peace comes back with golden wing, and with 
eye of hght. The great heart of the country beats full and strong ; 
and our pride in our land is increased a hundred fold. The very 
difficulties that we dreaded, prove to have been the very elements 
of our strength and our power ; and out of it all a clear national 
escutcheon — a glorious emblem of the national character and of 
power that now the world looks with dread to see what use we may 
make of it — power that has its greatest danger in the fact that 
we have at last learned our own strength. Before, we talked of 
our strength, but we did not half believe it; now we know it, 
and God help us to keep from acting on that knowledge, so that 
our children, and our children's children will mourn that we learned 
it so soon ! 

Thus, the year that has gone, in all its lessons and all its teach- 
ings, has been fraught with an interest that now we can but step 
upon the threshold of its mighty events to contemplate — that even 
the briefest retrospect shows to be one of those marked eras that 
measure ages in history, and from which mankind is content to date ; 
and if it had brought nothing else with it, if it had brought only 
this one lesson, to show to the world that we could be stricken down 
in the very home of our national affections, and rise the stronger 
after — that the shock that of all others we would have said would 
have torn us asunder, should be proven, under Providence, to be the 
very element of our greatest strength ; and more than that, that 
we should learn, that it should mold and grind, so to speak, into the 
national heart, a great lesson that we needed more than any other 
people on the earth, and that we ourselves should have supposed 
that we would be the last to learn — that Humility is queen among 
the graces — that the modest, graceful, duty-loving, straight-forward 
life, when .recognized and seen by the whole nation, is worshiped 
more than the brightest genius or the most splendid talent ; [Ap- 
plause] if there was no other lesson that we had learned from 
the death of our great and good President, except that all through 
c 



34 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

the heart of the people they were imbued with a consciousness that 
nothing was so great as goodness — that nothing was to be rever- 
enced as integrity and honor — that nothing was really so bright as 
the good, strong common sense that could always see. and do the 
right ; if no other lesson had been learned in the year than that, 
as it has been learned by our people, it would be a year to be 
remembered as long as human character was to exist, and feel the 
benefit of it on earth. [Cheers.] 

And so, my friends, this year has passed and gone. We have 
come together now to look forward, rather than to look back. Who 
can say, among those that we love and honor to-day, that one year 
from now we shall not be learning from the lesson of their lives 
other great truths, as we are learning these now ? It becomes us 
with all reverence to remember the age that we are in, the events 
that are crowding about us — that we are making history day by 
day, and that the coming year is charged with the interests of all 
time to a degree so great that human wisdom trembles upon its 
very threshold. If the educated men of this coast will keep this 
in mind, and calmly, prudently, reverently do all that in them lies 
to steady public sentiment, to give a healthy tone to public opinion, 
to protect the right and resist the wrong, then it will be a glorious 
year, and the beginning of other and more glorious years for the 
Pacific Coast. That such may be the result, will be the wish of 
every educated man, not only here, but throughout all our country. 
[Applause.] 

In proceeding with the regular business of the evening, I will 
first read a letter and a dispatch that has been received. It was 
expected that in answer to the sentiment to Cahfornia, which I will 
read : 

California. — Blessed with matchless resources and measureless wealth, that 
she may be first and foremost in the education of her children : — 

It was expected that the Governor of the State, as was most fit, 
should be here and respond to this sentiment. In place of that, I 
have received this dispatch from him this moment : 

I had fully expected to be with you to-day, but official duties deprive me of 
that pleasure. I send cordial congratulations, and hope that your meeting will 
prove both pleasant and profitable. 

F. F. LOW. 



THE FESTIVAL. 35 

The Attorney General of the State, J. G. McCullough, Esq., 
was invited, and I have an answer from him, which it will take but 
a moment to read : 

Sacramento, June 2d, 1865. 
My Dear Sir — 

Your very kind and considerate note of thirty-first ult. is before me. Xothing 
in the sound of recreation vrould please me better than to be with you at your 
Alumni meeting on Tuesday next at Oakland, and being there nothing would so 
deUght my soul as to respond to "the Bar," a profession at times much abused, by 
those who are ignorant of its virtues and consequent merits. But my late illness 
and necessary absence from duties for some time, impels me to remain at my post 
against my wishes. And I can only hope that it may be my very good fortune to 
be with you at your next meeting, and to mingle in your festivities. In conclusion, 
I trust, and do not doubt, that the many Alumni of our distant Alma Mater, scat- 
tered throughout this State, and who shall be gathered together on the coming 
Tuesday, will sit down to an intellectual feast which they only can enjoy. 
Very truly and cordially yours, 

J. G. McCULLOUGH. 

The following is from General Wright : 

Brigade Head-Quarters, Dist, of California, ) 
Sacramento, June 2d, 1865. ) 

Dear Sir — 

I beg of you to present my thanks to the Committee for their kind invitation 
to attend the " General Alumni Meeting for 1865." Eecollecting the very pleasant 
time we had last year, I deeply regret that my public duties durii g the next week 
deprive me of the pleasure of again meeting the Alumni. 

Praying that your " better time " may be fully realized, I remain, with great 
regard, 

Very truly, yours, 

G. WRIGHT, 
Brig. Gen. U. S. A., Graduate of West Point. 

Ptev. S. H. WiLLEY, 

Oakland, Cal. 

The next sentiment is one that will be responded to by every 
person here : 

Our Country. — Glorious ever as the home of the free ! Doubly glorious ever 
as the home onli/ of the free ! 

[Applause.] 

The Rev. Mr. Brown, of Newark, N. J., has kindly consented 
to respond to that sentiment : 

Rev. Mr. Brown. — Mr. Chairman^ Ladies, and Gentlemen : 
It is remarked, I think, or at least was remarked of the celebrated , 



36 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

Ben Jonson, on an occasion like this, when he had passed his plate, 
I think the fifth time, for strawberries, and it came back filled to 
him, as I believe it has done to some of the friends around me 
to-day, he is said to have remarked that God doubtless might have 
made a very much better berry than the strawberry, but doubtless 
God never did. [Laughter.] Now I can not say quite so much 
of the Califorina strawberries as I have been permitted to see them 
for the last two weeks — it has not been quite so much as that since 
I first landed upon your shores — not quite so much as some of your 
enthusiastic friends said on their journey here. Nevertheless, if 
you do not raise the largest and sweetest strawberries, you do cer- 
tainly have model gatherings of your Alumni. And, speaking of 
this very peculiar scene that is around me, and in which I have 
been engaged, and with which I have mingled this afternoon with 
so great pleasure, I am reminded of a prayer which a black man 
some months ago oifered along the fine of our army. As the sub- 
ject to which I am to speak has reference to the black man, let me 
repeat it. In his prayer he said, " Lord, we thank thee for the 
brothers," — for there were brothers, and sisters, and grown people, 
and children around. " Lord, we thank thee for the brothers ; 

Lord, we thank thee for the sisters ; and Lord, we thank 
thee for the difference between them. [Great laughter.] Now, I 
thank God for the Alumni meetings in the East, and I thank God 
for the Alumni meetings on the Pacific Coast, and I thank God for 
the differences between them. [Great applause and laughter.] 
The only difference between them is not that we come here as 
brothers, representing all the different colleges of our broad land, 
but we have the ladies, the sisters, no less than the brothers ; and 

1 only can suggest that on the next year, instead of giving them 
the lower end of the table, they shall be mingled all along through 
among the brothers. I see we are improving in this respect as we 
go on to-day. [Cheers.] 

I don't know how it was that I was betrayed into an attempt 
to make a speech on this sentiment. I was just musing on the 
strawberry question, and Ben Jonson's remark, and interesting 
myself in what was passing around me, when you asked me to 
make a few remarks on so great and glorious a topic ; and I, 
without much thought or hesitation, consented, but soon afterwards 



THE FESTIVAL. 3T 

took back my consent, and was compelled again to attempt a few 
words on this occasion. I suppose it is because I have had some 
indirect connection with the army — not as a chaplain ; not as an 
officer ; not as a soldier ; but in my relations to the Christian 
Commission, particularly. I have had some connection with the 
army. Indeed, sir, I look on a face here of one with whom I 
made my first march to the first Bull Run; [Cheers] and I, 
sir, was associated with that great rabble in the following June. 
[Laughter.] But we were Americans, full of boasting, full of con- 
fidence ; and we all together made that memorable advance upon 
Washington ; and I have been ever since that time in connection 
with the army on its most terrible battle-fields — at Gettysburg ; at 
Fredericksburg ; at Chancellorsville ; and in the Wilderness ; — and 
I suppose, because of my connection with those scenes, I was asked 
to speak upon this occasion. 

'' Our Country ! " Mr. President, these words have a signifi- 
cance and a power in them to-day which they never had before. 
[" That is a fact." Applause.] That flag has a meaning and an 
eloquence, a beauty, a glory in it it never had before ! [Cheer- 
ing.] Not long since — about a month ago — I was riding out from 
my own beautiful city, in the loyal — don't put an exclamation or 
interrogation point after that word — in the loyal State of Noav 
Jersey — I was riding out over the hills of the beautiful town of 
Orange. It was just after — not merely the fall of Richmond, but 
the surrender of Lee — and on every house-top, and hill- top, and 
flag-staff, the glorious flag of the American Union was floating ; 
and the sun falling on those flags in every direction, they seemed 
glorified, until they spoke to me with an eloquence that brought 
tears to my eyes ; and the crowd around me, as we looked off on 
those glorified flags in the evening sunlight, were thrilled with their 
significance, and the silent utterances which they brought to our 
hearts. 

" Our country : Always glorious as the home of the free." Sir, 
the very foundations upon which this nation was originally built, the 
foimdations were true. They were in harmony with the great 
principles of freedom ; and I thank God to-day that we are not 
called upon either to modify or take back the Declaration of 
Independence, or the Constitution of the United States. [Great 



38 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

applause.] There is not the stain of slavery, sir, in either ; and 
without altering or changing them, we are a free people. There 
are things in them which harmonize them to a certain extent with 
the order of things existing at that time ; but they did not teach 
them, assert them, or require them. They took facts as they were ; 
and, sir, we have a glorious country, in its broad, vast prosperity, 
and in its broad love of Hberty, as compared with the nations of 
the earth. And yet, sir, in the midst of it all there has been one 
dark stain. There has been deep dishonor and reproach attach- 
ing to us. Like other men, and like other nations, we have been 
inconsistent with ourselves, and the wood, and the hay, and the 
stubble have been mixed with the pure gold. We were standing 
like that great giant that the Prophet Daniel saw, with the head of 
gold, and arms of brass, and feet and hmbs of clay. We have been 
reproached among the nations of the earth, and there has been 
growing up a giant monster in the midst of us that has been drag- 
ging us to the earth and trailing our banner in the dust. We have 
been reproached, but thank God, sir, to-night slavery is dead. 
[Cheers.] You might as well go out into this cemetery, which I 
believe was inaugurated and constituted the day I think I was per- 
mitted to reach your shores — you may as well go there and attempt 
to bring back life again to the bones that are bleaching beneath its 
sod, as to try to bring back that cursed institution, or any thing 
that bears correspondence with it. [Cheers.] We are now free 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. The yoke is essen- 
tially broken, the chain is rent asunder, and every man starts up 
to worship God and perform his duty as a man. 

But what has it cost us ? You of the West don't know. You 
of the Pacific Coast can not realize what it cost. When I stand in 
my own home, in the presence of my own home, in the presence of 
my own people, and I look around me, almost every person of that 
congregation is draped in mourning. I have the honor of repre- 
senting a church that has sent more men into the war, I believe, 
than any one in the State of New Jersey. We have had not less 
than seventy-five of our young men at once in the army, and more 
than that at difierent times. Every house is a house of mourning — 
every heart is in sackcloth ; and yet they do not regret it — they do 
not complain of it. And let me tell you a fact. There was a 



THE FESTIVAL. 39 

mother, and she a widow : and she had three sons around her. 
She said to the eldest, at the commencement of the war, " My boy, 
go and fight for your country, for liberty, and for the principles 
of our fathers ; fight the revolution over again." He went, and 
fell m battle. She said to the second, " Go and take the place of 
your brother." He stood in his steps, and in a few months after- 
wards was borne away to the hospital and died. Then, with a heart 
overflowing with emotion, yet trusting in God, and loving her 
country all the more for the priceless sacrifices she had made, she 
said to the third boy, " Go, and God guide you." And he went, 
and was spared to her, and has retui^ned again. That is an 
example. In the city in which I live the people have come up 
voluntarily, and have paid millions. I speak within bounds. Mil- 
lions of dollars of bounty money. A city not so large as this, 
across your bay, containing only about eighty thousand inhabitants. 
We paid three-quarters of a million not two months ago, in sending 
soldiers to the army under this last call — and so all over the land. 
And the fathers and mothers, as their returned sons have gathered 
around them, and have related their heroic deeds, have loved and 
blessed their country on the principle that we love most that which 
costs us most, and we love our country because we have sacrificed 
for it. 

And one of the lessons we have learned by the war is, that it is 
more blessed to give than to receive. You on the Pacific Coast 
have given of your abundance Hberally, bounteously, to the Sanitary 
Commission and the Christian Commission. We on the Atlantic 
Coast have done the same. Do you know that five hundred mil- 
lions of dollars have been voluntarily contributed by the people of 
the United States in the last four years in the carrying on of this 
war? Five hundred milhons. A most significant fact. The people 
have learned to give, and the people like to give when then- hearts 
are in the cause, as they have been in this great and glorious war. 

Now, sir, we are free, and our country is not only a free 
country, a glorious country, but doubly glorious inasmuch as it 
is the home only of the free. [Cheers.] AYhat our futm^e history 
is to be, sir, no one of us can say ; but I think we stand to-day 
with a strength of character, an energy of purpose, and a potency 
before the nations of the earth such as we never had before. I 



40 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

believe that prior to the war there had come to be a clear distrust 
as to the perpetuity of republican institutions. " They were well 
enough in time of peace, but in time of war they would fail." That 
was the theory of all Europe. Now, sii^, we have been tried and 
tested as no nation ever was — as no nation ever could be and 
endure — and we have proved to all the kingdoms of the world that 
ours is the mightiest nation on the earth, and that republican gov- 
ernment is the strongest^ if only the people are virtuous and intelH- 
gent. [Applause.] Nor is this all. We have a future before us, 
but I do not beHeve that we shall be involved in war with England, 
or France, or any European nation. We stand together as brothers. 
We have no disturbing principles to keep us from acting in har- 
mony. That old state of pohtical talkativeness, which prevailed 
formerly and almost ruined us, is ended, and without striving for 
political preferences or party power, we shall strive to exalt this 
great nation, and to make it worthy of the exaltation we anticipate 
in its behalf. 

But I must not continue these remarks. I commenced with 
relating a story of a black man, and I will close by relating another. 
Some time ago a gentleman was reading in the presence of an ex- 
slave. [Great applause.] " England," said the reader, " England 
has a territory so broad that the sun never sets upon it." '' How is 
that ?" he asked of the black man. " Dis darkey can tell," said he. 
" But how ? " " 'Cause God can't trust 'em in de dark." [Great 
laughter.] Now, Mr. Chairman, we have not a territory on which 
the sun never sets. We extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the 
Pacific, from the Northern lakes to the Southern gulfs^ and no 
further — because God can trust us in the dark. And I confidently 
believe, that in all the future history of this nation we shall be true 
to the great principles which have been given us — we shall be true 
to our first principles, to our history on the grand issues of the 
war — and shall come forth as an evangel to the nations of the 
earth, working out our high and holy mission. God has discliplined 
us and trained us to swing into line with his principles. He can 
trust us in the light and in the dark — by night and by day. 

And what revolutions have taken place in public sentiment. In 
the beginning of the war, in my own city I was thought to be — 
for I was a Yankee — a radical, rather an extremist, in many things ; 



THE FESTIVAL. 41 

but I confess to jou that this day I am, and have been for the last 
six months, the most conservative man there. In the beginning of 
the war I used to make remarks that excited suspicions, or at least 
unpleasant feelings ; but about six weeks ago I was called to preside 
at a great meeting, and those same gentlemen — clergymen, too, 
who in the beginning of the war said, " If this Government shall 
undertake to interfere in the shghtest degree with the institution of 
slavery," they did'nt say arm the negroes, '' I will take my gun and 
fight for the South " — those same gentlemen said the most extrava- 
gant things on the other side, as I beheve some of the gentlemen 
here are in the habit of doing. But the country is changed, revo- 
lutionized, converted ; and we shall be true to ourselves, true to 
our God, and true to our country, now all the more glorious because 
the home only of the free. [Applause.] 

The President. — The next sentiment is — 

San Francisco. — The Queen City of the Pacific ! The Orient is her dowry, 
and the commerce of every sea shall be her more than regal diadem ! 

E. H. Washburn, Esq., will respond. 

Mr. Washburn. — I think justice to me required that the Chair- 
man should have stated that Mayor Coon was designated, and 
expected to respond to this sentiment, and that it was only within 
a few moments past that I was informed that I must speak in the 
Mayor's stead, who appears to be absent. In answer to my objec- 
tions the President has agreed to assume the entire responsibility 
for the result, and if he finds the responsibihty greater than he can 
bear, he need expect no sympathy from me. 

Gentlemen: To you, who have witnessed, as I have done, the 
almost miraculous birth and growth of our fair young City, who 
have seen her spring forth to a position of power and grandeur, 
like the fabulous creations of Arabic fancy — not hke them, in 
answer to the magician's wand, but at the command of the energy 
and enterprise of the American character — who have seen her 
again and again ravaged and desolated by the demon of fire, and 
each time arising in renewed and increased splendor, till she now 
sits upon her throne of beauty, the Queen of the Pacific, the 
nations of the earth paying homage to her rising power, and the 



42 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OE THE PACIFIC COAST. 

white-winged messengers of commerce laying their tribute at her 
feet, — to you it may be safe to speak of the past progress, the pres- 
ent position, and the future prospects of San Francisco. To those 
who have not seen, a prudent regard for one's reputation for ve- 
racity, might require suppression of half the truth. 

It is not a fit occasion, nor is it necessary before this audience, 
to enter into statistics or detailed statements to show the high 
position to which San Francisco has attained within the brief period 
of her existence as a commercial city ; or her progress in educa- 
tional interests, in art, science, and civilization — these facts are 
familiar to you, and are within the reach of all. 

On a recent visit to the East, and since my return, I have 
frequently been asked how San Francisco compares with New 
York. A due regard for the truth has compelled me to admit that 
San Francisco was not, in every respect, fully equal to New York. 
[Laughter.] But, gentlemen, the question constitutes a high 
eulogy upon our city. That a city but sixteen years old should, 
in any respect, admit of comparison with the metropolis of the 
nation, is just cause of pride and satisfaction to her citizens. 

As to the future of San Francisco, that, gentlemen, with all the 
resources of her soil and chmate, her boundless mineral wealth, 
and illimitable fields of commercial enterprise, is a subject too vast 
for prosaic words to illustrate ; as in reference to infinity and eter- 
nity, on this theme the imagination may exhaust itself without 
grasping the whole idea. As nothing less than the eloquence of 
the Orator of the day can fitly discuss the past prosperity of San 
Francisco, so no fancy less vivid, no imagination less fertile than 
those of the Poet of the day can appropriately portray her glorious 
future. [Applause.] 

Gentlemen, in considering the past and present of San Fran- 
cisco, nothing can be regarded with higher satisfaction by this 
audience than her advancement in the causes of Education, of Mo- 
rality, and of Christianity ; and I am sure that, with me, you will 
consider it as her crowning glory, that, with a population gathered 
from every section of our own country, and from every land and 
nation under heaven, yet, in the dark hour of our country's peril, 
she has stood forth firmly, unfalteringly, enthusiastically, for the 
Union ; ever ready to dare all, to do all, and to sacrifice all, to 



THE FESTIVAL. 43 

preserve the honor and the integrity of our common country. 
[Cheers.] 

Gentlemen, on such of you as are residents of San Francisco, 
occupying the positions, and possessing the influence "syhich educar 
ted talents always command, devolves the responsibility of fostering 
and» promoting her moral and intellectual enterprises — so that her 
advancement in these respects may keep pace with her physical 
growth, and that her rising generation may prove equal to, and 
worthy of, the high destiny to which they are born. [Applause.] 

The Presidext. — I think Mr. Rankin ought to say a word for 
San Francisco, also, from the other side of the house. 

Ira p. Rankin. — Mr. Chairman : It struck me that the senti- 
ment which you proposed had been very well responded to ; and, 
though you intimated to me some time ago that you should call 
upon me, I really hoped that when Mr. Washburn sat down, you 
would have changed your mind. I really see httle more that need 
be said in regard to the future of San Francisco, or her present 
position. No doubt she is destined not only to be what she is 
now, the principal port upon the whole Pacific Coast of the two 
Americas, but to be one of the greatest emporiums of commerce 
in the world. With our Pacific Railroad completed ; with our line 
of China steamers ; with our telegraph overland through Russia, 
communicating thus with all parts of the world ; and with the 
industry, enterprise, and genius of our people, estabhshed as they 
are upon a soil fertile not only in the ordinary productions of the 
earth, but productive almost beyond every other in the world of 
the precious metals, it cannot be otherwise than that, with all 
these, San Francisco is destined to become, in no very long time, 
one of the greatest emporiums of commerce throughout the world. 
But it occurred to me when I was hstening to my friend, Mr. 
Washburn, that the real greatness of the city did not consist merely 
in its population, its wealth, its manufactories, its warehouses, or 
its merchandise. All these may abound, and superabound; and 
yet, in the absence of public virtue ; in the absence of pure morals ; 
of a high tone of pubhc sentiment ; of educational and religious 
institutions, in accordance with the civilization of our age, no city 
can be great. And, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that a very 



44 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

great responsibility rests upon the intelligent, educated men of this 
community. 

We have the reputation in California of being devoted merely 
to material interests ; doubtless we are far too much so — partly, 
perhaps, from the pecuhar circumstances of our country ; the 
peculiar circumstances which have brought people to California — 
but whether this tendency is more or less strong, it needs, 
unquestionably, to be restrained withki reasonable and proper lim- 
its. It needs the influence, ui the right direction, of the cultivated 
mtellect of the State ; and it is for you, gentlemen, educated men — 
men endowed by God with superior natural powers — men who have 
enjoyed the advantages of liberal intellectual culture, — it is for you, 
by the influence which you can exert, and which you are exerting, 
either for good or evil, through the whole structure of society, to 
determine what the future structure of society may be ; and what 
San Francisco is, the State must be. San Francisco is metropolitan 
to an extent which perhaps is not true of any other principal city 
of any other principal State in the Union. In San Francisco is 
centered the main body of the wealth of California, the political 
influence, and the commerce and manufactures of the whole coast. 
And what San Francisco is, the State will be ; and what the State 
is, the whole Pacific Coast will be. And in this view, Mr. Chair- 
man, it seems to me that the intelligent, educated men of this State 
cannot feel too deeply the great moral and religious obligation which 
rests upon them to use all their influence in favor of truth, patriot- 
ism, and religion. [Applause.] 

The President. — The next regular sentiment is one that will 
come home to us all. 

Our Army. — Four years have covered it with glory, and it is fitly closing a 
record of triumphs, such as the world never before saw, by storming the great 
heart of the people, and intrenching itself within it forever ! 

[Cheers long and loud followed.] 

Not content with doing this throughout the country, it has sent 
us a Commander of the Department of the Pacific, who has done 
exactly that same thing for each and all of us. [Applause.] We 
will call on General McDowell. [Vociferous applause.] 



THE FESTIVAL. 45 

Gen. McDowell. — When I was about coming here to-daj, a 
pert young gentleman with whom I walked, asked me if I was an 
Alumnus ? [Shouts of laughter.] In view of the representatives I 
see here of the colleges of the Eastern States, of the Pacific, the 
Mississippi and the Lake States, and in view of the humble pre- 
tentions, or rather no pretentions at all, the school on the banks of 
the Hudson makes to any thing literary, I could not but feel there 
was a good deal of propriety in his question. [Laughter.] And 
when I heard the eloquent Poem of the day, and how much was 
said in favor of the dead languages, and how much was not said in 
favor of x^ and ?/, and s, I felt hke an intruder ; and I think, now, 
I have no business here as one of the Alumni on this occasion 
[Laughter] : that I am here by special act of favor and grace — 
a special dispensation in my case. I was at one time almost afraid 
that the worthy Chairman would serve me as I was served by my 
friend Mr. Walsworth the other day. I went to the Pacific Female 
College, and saw there a charming army of beautiful young ladies, 
and, to my horror and astonishment, I was called upon by my friend 
to speak to them, because it was a military necessity. [Cheers and 
laughter.] I have heard a great many things attributed to military 
necessity, but that was the most astonishing and extraordinary of 
them all. And I was afraid on this occasion there might be some 
military necessity invoked. But I prefer to beheve, as I said before, 
that it is a special act of favor that I am admitted among this literary 
assembly — a favor which is due, I think, to the fact of my connec- 
tion and association with that great army. And without going into 
sacred history, or the mythological, we may safely call that army 
the greatest that has ever been. Napoleon had his grand army 
when he went to Russia. If you will take that as a measure, you 
will find how much greater the armies of the United States have 
been, and are now, than ever any were that he marshaled — greater 
in number, greater in character, and far greater in the objects 
which they had in view. [Applause.] In every nation an army 
partakes of the character of the institutions of that nation ; and if 
our army is so much greater, as I have affirmed it to be, than any 
other army that ever was before, I think it comes directly from the 
fact that it does partake of the institutions under which we live, 
I do not think you will accuse me of egotism, when I say that I 



46 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

think there are few who know better than I do what our army was 
in the beginning — I mean this great army that now exists in the 
United States. Not the little army to which I belong, and have 
always belonged, but the one you mean now when you speak of the 
Army of the Union — white and black, volunteer and regular. [Ap- 
plause.] In the beginning this little nucleus of the ar" and IP' 
graduates from West Point, scattered all over the country, or hid 
away in some little frontier fort, unknown, not knowing themselves, 
were called suddenly to take upon themselves immense respon- 
sibilities and trusts they never dreamed of, that no person ever 
thought possible they could be called upon to assume. In Wash- 
ington, the Government was in the hand of men unacquainted with 
military affairs — Lincoln, Seward, and others. Those gentlemen 
who, like yourselves, were graduates of institutions of learning, and 
had been called upon to administer the affah-s of the country, had 
need of the services of this other class of people from West Point, 
scattered all over the country, neither knowing the other. I was a 
witness myself personally of this want of knowledge of these two 
classes, each of the other. It was a curious scene. I do not 
think that any history will ever show a nation suddenly wanting the 
immense force we needed, and its leaders knowing so little of what 
was necessary for such a force — ^how to organize it — how to get it 
together — how to command it — or anything, in fact, about it. And 
then those men who have become so great, the Shermans, the Sher- 
idans, and the Grants, they themselves not trusting in their own 
power. One of those persons, to my own knowledge, shrank even 
from the command of a regiment — did not feel himself competent 
to take upon himself that responsibihty ; but these men, obhged to 
go forward, obliged by their education, and by the bond which that 
imposed upon them, and accepting any responsibihty that was given 
them, have gone forward, and attracted the attention and the 
admiration of the whole world. I am certain there are many here 
who know one of them, and will agree with me that there is not 
a more gallant, straight-forward, loyal, deserving man in the whole 
country than General Sherman. [Great applause.] I could not 
forbear mentioning especially his name, for people are so apt to 
forget what he did, so apt to lose sight of the great services he 
has rendered, because he has, recently, made a bad bargain. 



THE FESTIVAL. 47 

I have seen something of the armies of Europe, and know some- 
thing of their composition, and therefore feel I am not exaggerat- 
ing, when I say that no nation in the world could have raised such 
an army as we have now. No monarch could have done it, nobody 
but the grand people could have done it. 

That army will soon pass out of existence, I hope ; that is to 
say, the largest portion of it. It has been a great weight and 
burden upon the country ; but I trust it will always be remembered 
that the army did not organize this Rebellion, but it was the army 
that put it down. [Great applause.] So much is said, or was 
said, when I was young, in the Fourth of July orations and political 
speeches, about the dangers of a standing army, that I think it is 
well to bear this one fact in mind, that the institutions have not 
been harmed by the military force of the nation ; and when the 
exceptional state of affairs which exists more or less all over the 
country, shall pass away, as it will soon pass away, I do not think 
the army will have left any trace behind that will be prejudicial to 
the institutions under which we live. One thing was always said 
by Europeans and persons who thought and wrote about this coun- 
try ; which was that slavery was the great rock on which we were 
going to split. Well, we struck on that rock, and we struck it 
hard ; but the rock it was that was split, and not the country. 
[Vociferous applause.] And we did not only split the rock, but 
we ground it to powder. [Cheering.] 

Then again it was said that it was utterly impossible for such a 
Government as ours — "a mere rope of sand" — to hold together. 
You may recollect that some minister at Washington, I don't know 
but it was Lord Lyons, wrote that it was a mere rope of sand, and 
it could never carry on a military campaign. I simply venture to 
assert that no other Government but ours could have carried on 
this contest as we have carried it on. It was not the act of one 
single man, nor of one dozen men, but it has been the act of the 
whole of the American people. [Great applause.] 

The President. — 

The Deceased Statesmen of the United States. — Those who most readily 
attained eminence, were those who had received thorough academical education. 
Those who were deficient in their early advantages, and yet achieved success in 



48 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

spite of these defects, had still become educated men, although, by the slow and 
imperfect processes of self-education. Both classes equally demonstrate the intrin- 
sic value of early academical training. 

We are so fortunate as to have here to-day one of the few liv- 
ing statesmen who were with, and of, the glorious days of our 
country. Gen. James Wilson will now respond to this sentiment. 
[Cheers.] 

Gen. Wilson. — Mr. President^ Ladies^ and Gentlemen : It is 
now forty-five years since I left college. I have hardly been in an 
assemblage of literary ^men from that day to the present. I had 
thought of a few things that I might possibly say. I was delighted 
with a letter of invitation. I looked over this catalogue of the 
Alumni of the different colleges of the United States that were to 
assemble here on this occasion, and it struck me as containing 
something not only new, but important and extraordinary. Old 
literary associations were, as it has been well remarked by Mr. 
President, a kind of clique, or mutual admiration assemblage. We 
got together according to our different institutions. Graduates of 
colleges of an exclusively literary character scarcely thought of 
attending a meeting of the Alumni of a mihtary college, and the 
graduates of mihtary colleges as little of attendmg the meetings of 
the literary colleges. Even those colleges near each other seldom 
met in this manner. And so it was forty-odd years ago throughout 
all that region of country where I was born, and where I was raised 
and educated. When I saw this catalogue, I saw that the whole 
of that had been overlooked, that the partition-wall had been broken 
down, and an idea struck me, and upon that idea I had intended to 
make some little remarks here if I was asked to say anything. I 
came over here and went to see my worthy friend the President, 
and when I came to this hall, although treated with great kindness, 
I find that he has anticipated all my remarks upon that question ; 
and that has learned me one lesson, and that is, that it is wholly 
and entirely hopeless to attempt to steal anything from the house of 
Tompkins. [Laughter.] Then, again, I feel myself somewhat 
embarrassed in another point of view. In old times, when we had 
coUege meetings, they voted that the ladies might stay out; so 
when I came here, I was particularly impressed with the audience I 



THE FESTIVAL. 49 

saw before me. Five and twenty years ago I was invited to go to 
Burlington, in Vermont, to make a political speech. I went up to 
fulfill the engagement, and when I got there the ladies of the town 
had prepared a beautiful banner which they were going to present 
to the log-cabin club, and they sent an invitation to me to go and 
make a little speech upon the occasion of that presentation. I 
went and made as good a speech as I could. After getting through 
the political meeting, I took a little journey to Montreal. When I 
got back to Burlington, I went to see my friend with whom I had 
staid when in town before. When I got back he says to me, "Jim, 
what do you think the ladies say of you?" "Why, I don't 
know," said I ; " didn't they like my speech ? " " Well, yes, they 
were well enough satisfied with the speech, but they do say that 
you are the ugliest man that they ever saw." [Cheers and laugh- 
ter.] But they made one exception ; they said that I was the 
homeliest man that they ever did see but one, and that was Henry 
Clay. " Oh,'* said I, " if they only make that exception, that 
will do." [Laughter.] Now here, on this occasion, I meet not 
only literary gentlemen representing every part of the country, 
from the extreme East to the extreme West, without regard to 
religion, without regard to politics, without regard to anything 
except a literary reputation devoted to science and to literature ; 
but I find that you have gone even beyond that, and you have 
voted, and voted very unanimously, too, that the ladies may come 
in. It is a kind of women's rights assemblage, and therefore I am 
very glad to see that, because I believe that they are among the 
most important of the whole upon the great subject of education. 
Knowledge is power — knowledge is poiver. But knowledge, in 
order to be a power, and to assert its influence as it can and as it 
must, and as it ought to everywhere, must be diffused. Knowl- 
edge is nothing if it is locked up in a brain and never permits itself 
to exert itself properly and extensively throughout the whole com- 
munity. There is power, sir, in the Amoskeag Falls, on the Mer- 
rimack River, in New Hampshire. There was just the same power 
there a few years ago that there is to-day ; there was the same 
power there during the revolutionary war that there is to-day. 
Our 'soldiers, during the revolutionary war, wanted clothing, wanted 
cartridges, wanted everything ; but they got nothing from tlie 

D 



50 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

power that ran over Amoskeag Falls. Not until knowledge and 
science uses that power, until the very forces of gravitation that 
tumbled uselessly over the rocks at Amoskeag Falls, are con- 
trolled and directed by human science, jump off on to the water- 
wheel, and turn it, does it become a real power, and turn out 
clothing enough to clothe the armies of the United States, and also 
the whole continent. This is the operation of knowledge. There 
was power, sir, in the thunder and in the lightning ; but it was a 
power only, as formerly known, of destruction. But Ben Franklin 
sent up a little kite into a cloud, and brought it to the earth. Prof. 
Morse harnessed it, and somebody else has made it talk ; and, sir, 
the honorable gentleman who sits beside you, and who so properly 
wears the insignia of the Army of the United States, is receiving 
instructions from New York to San Francisco, every day, by that 
mighty power that there is in the thunder-cloud. It is knowledge 
that does this, and that knowledge must be diffused. Now let me 
say, Mr. President, and you, ladies and gentlemen, that I am 
happy, exceedingly happy, to meet you here on this^ occasion. 
Your object is knowledge, and science ; but in order to make it 
available, it must be diffused, and it must be diffused generally 
throughout the whole people. They must all be educated, and I 
undertake to say that you will find your strongest and ablest assist- 
ants in the ladies who represent their sex here on this occasion, and 
I greet them most cordially, and am happy to meet them here. 
[Applause.] 

But we come here from different colleges, we have our own local 
thoughts. I cannot on this occasion, now, even after forty-five 
years' absence, very nearly, I cannot help letting my mind run 
back and hold a little converse with those with whom I was asso- 
ciated, and from whom I separated more than forty years ago. I 
know not exactly which end of the class to begin at. I had a class- 
mate by the name of Barnes, Isaac 0. Barnes, tie was a New 
Hampshire boy, but we happened to meet upon the shores of Otter 
Creek — were members of Middlebury College together. He was 
a man of a good deal of wit, and very fond of good living. Oyster 
suppers and roast turkey had a particular charm for him ; and I 
must say — because those times were different from these — I don't 
pretend to say it was right, but those oyster suppers and roast tur- 



THE FESTIVAL. 51 

keys usually had some other little accompaniments that I need not 
mention here. [Laughter.] On several of these occasions Barnes 
got very happy. I remember that after one of them Barnes came 
to me and clapped me on the shoulder, and says he, "Jim, you 
are a clever fellow — a very clever fellow. You were folded up 
about right, but you were misdirected. You ought to have been 
sent to Kentucky." [Laughter and cheers.] Now, if I was folded 
up all right for Kentucky, I don't know but that it was a good 
direction that I was sent to California. 

Then, I had another classmate, his name was Lawrence — My- 
ron LaAvrence. He graduated as a great scholar; studied the law; 
went to Massachusetts ; settled there ; and became a politician, so 
far as to go into the Senate of the State of Massachusetts. He 
was a man of a great deal of ability ; acquitted himself in life very 
honorably, and very creditably ; and has since deceased. 

Now, I had another classmate, and I speak of him and speak 
of his memory with profound reverence and profound respect — his 
name was Stephen Olin — the first scholar in the class ; the first 
scholar in the college; and the first scholar, I think, that ever 
graduated at the college. He was a large man, and a devoted 
student. The family from which he was descended had not much 
wealth. The father was a respectable old judge of the County 
Court of one of the counties of Vermont. Ohn graduated at the 
head of his class ; and up to this period of his life, he had never 
made any profession of religion. He started, after his college 
course had ended, and wandered down into South Carolina, and 
settled down upon the extreme southern boundary-line of that State. 
He there, for the first time in his Hfe and experience, came in 
contact with the institution of Negro slavery. He was a school- 
master ; and down on the very same ground that had been trodden 
a century before by the founder of the Methodist Church — where 
John Wesley had been, and where his campaneros had also been 
teaching the doctrines of the Methodist, nearly a hundred years 
before Ohn went there. He became a Methodist, a professor of 
religion, and whatever he professed, he professed with all his heart, 
and all his sincerity. One of the first occurrences afterwards in 
the place where he lived, was a duel between Mr. McDuffie, 
the Senator, and Colonel Cumming. Ohn, having watched the 



52 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

whole thing, sat down and wrote a powerful pamphlet, right there 
in the very hot-bed of " The Code," against this system of dueling. 
You may know what would be the effect there. He used up 
completely those two men — not only showing the moral wrong and 
error of their conduct, but showing how ridiculous chivalry could 
make itself, even when it tried to fight. Mr. McDuffie at that time 
was making his advances to a young lady of fortune. She was a 
rehgious woman, and Olin offered himself, and she discarded the 
duehst, and gave her hand to the great, awkward Vermont Meth- 
odist Minister. Olin afterwards came from there, and went over to 
Europe, on account of his health. When he returned he was elected 
President of Jhe College at Middletown, and there he remained. 
He has written many very important works ; and he who has not 
read them has got a very important and interesting literary work 
before him. Now, Mr. President, I have said so much, just out of 
respect to classmates, I want to go a Httle further, because you are 
here as Hterary men, and you have these aid-de-camps here — ladies 
who are ready to assist you about the work. I want to say a few 
words about my own experience while in college. It happened that 
there was some little freak among the boys — I wont tell what it was 
[laughter] — but at all events the faculty of the college — I might 
say, gave me an invitation [great laughter] ; but there is another 
word that will answer my purpose better, when I explam it — they 
enticed me to leave Middlebury about this time of year, and spend 
about eight months in retirement. [Laughter.] I Vas enticed to 
do that — as you are a lawyer, sir, you must understand the way in 
which I use the word. Some time afterwards, when I left college, 
I used to be in Court some, and I remember once being present 
at the trial of a man under indictment for resisting an officer. A 
witness came on to the stand who was friendly, very friendly, to 
Howard the prisoner. He was asked : " Were you present when 
'Squire Ames attempted to arrest Mr. Howard ? " " Yes." " Well, 
what was done?" "Well, he enticed 'Squire Ames out of the 
barn." "Enticed 'Squire Ames out of the barn! what do you 
mean by that ? " " Why," says the witness, " 'Squire Ames came 
into the barn where we were, and put his hand on Howard's shoul- 
der, and told him he was his prisoner, and then Howard he took a 
pitchfork and enticed 'Squire Ames out of the barn." [Laughter.] 



THE FESTIVAL. 53 

Now, I had a little paper in my pocket, and when I left Middle- 
bury there was a very strong enticement very much in that way. 
[Laughter.] But I went and took up my residence with Parson 
Wright, and it was an important thing to me. It was important 
in this point of view — I had never then seen a legislative body 
assembled ; the Legislature of Vermont in 1819 assembled in the 
fall of the year, under the Constitution, at Montpelier ; I had a 
great anxiety to see that body ; I wanted to see the organization of 
a legislative body — the Governor inaugurated ; the Speaker elected ; 
the Speaker take his chair ; and the various orders in which busi- 
ness was managed ; and I was very anxious to get permission from 
Parson Wright, my teacher and my friend, and as worthy a man 
as ever lived, to attend the meeting ,of the Legisjature. And how 
do you think I did it ? I had gone there, under some suspicious 
circumstances, in June ; the meeting was to come off in October — ► 
I had, then, about two or three months to work in, and I wanted a 
good deal of time, in order to make all the arrangements. I first 
addressed myself to the children — I made friends with the children. 
I got the boy, who was some eight or nine years of age — he would 
hang over my left shoulder ; and little Charlotte would hang over 
my right shoulder ; and little Julia, on my lap. The other child 
was a baby when I went there. Her name was Eliza. I would 
take her and get her to sleep, and then take her into the study, 
and take down a little trundle-bed that I used to sleep on — it wasn't 
quite long enough for me, but I managed to get along with it — and 
I would put her on it, and cover her face with an old vail, to keep 
the flies off. Very frequently I would hear Mrs. Wright w^onder- 
ing where 'Liza was, and then I would go out and tell her that the 
baby was sleeping on my bed. It went along so, until about the 
first of October, and Mrs. Wright wanted to go down into the State 
of Maine, to visit a brother that she hadn't seen for a great number 
of years. Mr. Wright was like other ministers settled in that coun- 
try at that time — was not very flush of money on a little salary 
of three hundred dollars a year, with a wife and four children to 
support. So Parson Wright came into the office, and said to me, 
" Wilson, I have no right to ask you, but Mrs. Wright is very 
anxious to make a journey to see a brother of hers, and she needs 
a — little — money. You have been boarding for some time, and 



54 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

your time is not up yet ; but if it would be convenient for you, -we 
would like to have you pay now." " Well," says I, " how much 
is it ? " " Well, I don't know ; do you think a dollar and arhalf 
a week would be too much ? " " Oh, no ; that is all fair enough," 
says I. " And might I ask a Httle advance for what will be due 
by-and-by ? " And so it was made up, the amount that Mrs. 
Wright needed, by my paying part of my board beforehand. And 
then when Mrs. Wright had got all ready to go, she came to me, 
and, said she, " I want a promise from you." " Well," said I, 
" what is it ? " " Well," says she, " I have left the baby over at 
Mrs. Kellogg' s, and I want you to promise me that you ■svill go 
over every day and see it." " Well," says I, " I will go over 
every day and see it ; " and then, happening to have a twenty- 
dollar bill — not gTcenback, but current money — in my pocket, I 
took it out, and said to Mrs. Wright : '' You are going a long 
juomey ; no knowing what your chcumstances may be ; take this, 
and use it as you may need." After this was done, I found no 
difficulty in getting permission to go down to the Legislature every 
day, and hear the debates. 

Now there are some men here who are acquainted with the men 
who composed the Legislature of Vermont in those days, and you 
can imagine what an influence their discussions and debates would 
have upon me, because they were statesmen. I went in there 
as a young man, not twenty years of age, and was benefited and 
instructed. There was Cornelius P. Yan Ness, of Burlington, Wil- 
ham C. Bradlee, from Westminster, Azi'o A. Buck, from Chelsea, 
David Edwards, of Yergennes — able gentlemen every one. That 
Legislature was an assemblage of men of education, and learning, 
and power. I heard those men talk, I heard them discuss pubhc 
questions, and I say it now in the presence of the Alumni assembled 
on this occasion, that from that day to this, in Yermont, Xew Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts, Iowa, and in the Congress of the L^nited 
States, I never have heard the Enghsh language spoken more cor- 
rectly, or with more power or more eloquence than I heard in 
the Legislature of Yermont in 1819. Of all the men that I ever 
heard speak the Enghsh language I have heard no man who was 
a more accomplished dialectician, or more eloquent speaker than 
that same David Edwards, of Yergennes. And my honorable friend, 



THE FESTIVAL. 55 

Mr. Justice Shaffcer, of California, if he has ever heard him, will 
sustain what I say. Then there was Jim Bell, of Walden. He 
was a shoemaker. He began life as a shoemaker, and was an 
uneducated man. He could read and he could write, but his trade 
and his profession was upon his bench and under his lap-stone. He 
became a deputy-sheriff, and by some accident or mistake, got into 
a lawsuit. He employed counsel to defend him, and they went on 
defending him, and defending him, and defending him. He ex- 
pended all his money for fees, and at last was compelled to go and 
sell his last cow for money to pay counsel fees ; and when that was 
gone he said he must go to the bar and argue his own case. And 
he did so, and he carried his own case through. At last he applied 
for admission to the bar. Well, you know that in that State a man 
must have gone through a certain course of study in order to be enti- 
tled to admission, and the lawyers opposed Jim's admission, until a 
wise and sagacious man in his county by the name of Jack Mat- 
tocks, says : " Don't you resist Jim Bell any longer ; if you try to 
keep him out much longer, he will turn us all out." He was finally 
admitted. Now here was a man of native mind, of native power, 
of native intellect. He grew up from the necessities of the case. 
And an apphcation of his case may be made right here. I want the 
President and Professors of this College, I want all of you ministers 
of the Gospel, I want all of you lawyers, I want all of you physicians 
that go into every house and family, I want you all to interest your- 
selves, and to be on the look out for genius. [Cheers.] You fathers 
and mothers are not paying attention enough to these httle ones. 
You will see by proper attention genius and talent in the child, and 
when you have found that genius and talent, then let nothing stand 
in the way of his or her education. It must be attended to. The 
country has a right to it. Genius is the gift of God, and it is your 
duty and my duty ; yours, fathers and mothers ; yours, young man ; 
yours, minister of rehgion ; it is for you to dig for that treasure, 
and when you find it be careful that you do not lose it. [Cheers.] 
I want to say one thing further, in illustration of what I have 
said before. It has been one of the studies to which I have apphed 
myself much more than I have to books, to find out what there was 
in my own mind, and what has excited it to any sort of effort. I 
.was born in a little town in the interior of New Hampshire, near 



56 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

the shore or bank of the Contoocook River. There was a church 
built on the highest hill there was in town — no stove in it, nor any 
thing else to warm it, and the winters were pretty long and pretty 
cold, but the summers were pleasant. There were some shade-trees 
on that hill, and among others there was a great, broad, branching 
beech-tree. The people all came to church, and in the pleasant 
summer days, in the intermission between the forenoon and the 
afternoon service, the men used to walk out under that tree and get 
up a discussion of some important and serious question. There Avas 
reasoning and discussions there that would do credit to any assem- 
blage of men in any country ; and I have often thought as I sat 
and listened, with my eyes open, straining to catch and master the 
thoughts, that I would give all the gold in California for the power 
to talk as those men could. Now these are occasions which you 
literary men can take advantage of in waking up genius and intel- 
lect in the young mind. It doesn't do for us to talk foolishly. 
There are no such judges of sincerity and truth as children. They 
may sometimes be deceived, and may be imposed upon, but they 
are not deceived or imposed upon a great while. They find out 
men very quickly. 

Now, Mr. President, and you, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me 
infinite pleasure to meet you here on this occasion. We are on the 
Pacific Coast. We come here relieved from a good many embar- 
rassments that are found in an older and more firmly established 
state of things in society than what we have. Every one who has 
had the benefit and advantage of education, in my judgment, owes 
a duty to this new and rising State, and to the rising generation 
within the State. And expressing again my profound satisfaction 
for having come here on this occasion, I hope that we shall join ^ 
hands one and all upon this subject of education, this extending of 
knowledge, this diffusion of knowledge every where. 

And gentlemen and ladies, I am obliged to you for the kind 
attention which you have been pleased to give to these poor 
remarks. [Cheers.] 

The President. — The next sentiment is — 

Education and the Mines. — Science, applying her mercurial spirit of education 
to the sure processes of art, condenses the most palpable vapor into streams of 



THE FESTIVAL. 57 

liquid metallic wealth, and penetrating the dust of the crushed mountain rock, by 
her mysterious affinities aggregates into ponderous masses the hitherto invisible 
atoms of the precious ores. 

It would seem at the first blush that I might do better than to 
call upon a gentleman who has put more people to sleep than any 
other man in the country, to respond to this toast ; and I therefore 
announce a fact that will show you that men may put others to 
sleep, and yet arouse intellect at the same time to its highest ideas 
of development. You all remember, many of you do, at any rate, 
when the scientific world was first startled by the discovery of the 
wonderful effects of ether upon the human system — how it was that 
the keys that locked in the human soiil had been discovered — and 
how when that had been developed at last in one of the most 
beneficent powers that the world ever saw, all united to do honor 
to the noble man who had given that great boon to all men. And 
when I tell you, I need only mention his name — that Professor 
Charles T. Jackson, the discoverer of ether and its wonderful 
power — is here to-night, I am sure that there will be none of us 
sleepy as we ask now to hear him. [Cheers.] 

Prof. Jackson. — Mr. President^ Ladies^ and G-entlemen : 
Called up by such complimentary remarks, I feel myself completely 
humbled before you. I do not stand here as an orator, or as one 
who can enter into competition with the gentlemen who have pre- 
ceded me. I simply come here representing the application of 
science to the arts, a subject to which I have devoted a large por- 
tion of my life ; and therefore you will not expect to hear me speak 
in strains of eloquence. If, however, you should all fall asleep 
while I am making my remarks, you will attribute it undoubtedly 
to the all-pervading influence of the ether named by your President. 

What I have to say to you, ladies and gentlemen, is but little. 
I have not yet, in the mere month's time I have spent in California 
and Nevada, seen enough of your natural resources to be able to 
give you any information which you do not already possess. I 
have been in only about one hundred and twenty of the silver 
mines of Nevada, and in a few of the gold mines of California ; 
and what are those few mines compared with the many thousands 
you have opened all over your hills and throughout your placers ? 



58 ASSOCIATEP ALUMNI OF THE PACIPIC COAST. 

Mj knowledge is therefore comparatively limited, and so you will 
not, in the language of the sentiment which I am called upon to 
respond to, expect me " to collect into ponderous masses the hitherto 
invisible atoms of the precious ores," although I wish I could place 
all the true gold of science before you. [Cheers.] But I may 
here in these halls of learning say a few w^ords on the claims 
which science has upon us, to raise our asph^ations above the pick 
and the shovel, and claim for her a proper place in your estimation. 
It is said that in Cahfornia, men merely come to make money, 
and then go home again. Mr. President, I don't beheve it. Men 
who come here merely to collect gold and carry it away do not 
found here universities to educate their children. [Applause.] It 
is said also that, in a mercantile community, there is no atmosphere 
of science. It was said so in Boston in 1829, when I went round 
with a paper to induce persons to subscribe their names, to form the 
Boston Society of Natural History. I then was told that there 
was no atmosphere of science in Boston. It was all mercantile. 
*' What !" I replied, " no atmosphere of science in Boston ? Then 
let us create one. Let us raise a breeze of science." [Laughter.] 
We did it, sir ; and in 1830 the Boston Society of Natural History 
was begun in a little room like the one which your Academy of 
Natural Sciences at present occupies at San Francisco. And now, 
sir, the society owns one of the most magnificent buildings in Bos- 
ton, on land given to it by the State ; and the building was erected 
by voluntary subscriptions, made by the citizens of Boston, while 
our civil war was raging in the most fearful manner. As a clergy- 
man — Rev. Mr. Waterston, of Boston — remarked, it was not only 
a monument of science, but of faith, aye, and expression of a full 
behef and feeling that we were and are still a nation, and that 
our country would triumph over all difficulties and rise from this 
Rebelhon stronger than ever. The Boston Society of Natural His- 
tory is not only a Boston Society, it is a State Society, it is a United 
States Society — aye, it is an American Society. It extends its in- 
fluence all over the country. It claims as its affihated branch the 
Academy of Natural Sciences m Cahfornia. The Boston Society 
now, with abundant funds, with large halls, with collections rapidly 
increasing, will soon hold the front rank with any society on the East- 
ern soil ; and looking at your vast resources, looking at the broad 



THE FESTIVAL. 59 

Pacific, looking along the whole Western coast of America, and 
among the Pacific Islands, I ask if an Academy of Natural Sciences 
ought not to be estabhshed here that shall surpass any thing that we 
now have on the other side of the continent ? Your resources are 
almost unbounded. Europe has very few of the objects of natural 
history that you can command in abundance. All that you have to 
do is to collect the objects of natural history at your command, and 
all Europe will rush to exchange with you, and pour its wealth of 
natural history into your lap in exchange for what you may have ; 
and your scientific publications will be sought after every where, 
as containing descriptions of things altogether new to the scientific 
world. 

Science, sir, is a power to which my friend (Gen. Wilson), the 
father of the Northern Peninsula of Michigan, and of her copper 
mining, has alluded.* 

It is a power, and a power greater than the masses of practical 
men think. The practical man is apt to suppose that it is merely 
speculative in its nature. But what are its speculations more than 
the predicting of things just before they come to pass ? When Sir 
H. Davy, the Enghsh chemist, first eliminated globules of potassium 
from pieces of potash and soda, under the poles of a galvanic bat- 
tery, and discovered that the alkalies were only oxyds of metals ; 
and by reasoning upon the combinations of the alkaline earths 
showed that they also were metallic oxyds, he reasoned justly, 
and he made a great generalization ; he saw into the future as dis- 
tinctly as though he had the metals in his hands. He never saw a 
particle of calcium, barium, strontium, magnesium, or aluminium 
in his life ; yet a few years after his death his great discoveries were 
verified by other chemists, and Charles Deville has produced alu- 
minium by the ton, and its combinations with copper form an alloy 
which resembles and competes with gold, in beauty and almost in 
ductility. Magnesium, what is that ? You all know what mag- 
nesia is. Magnesia is the rust of a metal, which metal you can 
obtain by chemical means, now known, and draw it out into wires. 
Touch one of those wires to the flame of a candle and see what 



* Gen. James Wilson procured the passage of a law authorizing locations on 
unsurveyed lands, and took out the first location on Lake Superior. 



60 ASSOCIATED ALOIXI OF THE PACLFIC COAST. 

will be tlie result. It will burst into a flame biilliant as the foil 
glare of tlie sun — a light which possesses all the qualities of sun- 
light — a hght by which photographs of interiors may be obtained 
as perfectly as if illuminated by direct simlight. You can an-ange 
the wke so as to have it pushed up regularly by a spring, and it 
will continue to burn like a most biilHant gas-flame. One ounce of 
it will give more hght than twenty-eight pounds of steaiine candles. 
This is but a beginnhig. These things have but recently been dis- 
covered, and we hardly know yet what theii' other practical uses 
will be. Franklin, when he was asked what was the use of elec- 
tricity, replied, '-What is the use of a baby?" If Frankhn had 
hved to this day he would have seen his baby gi'own up and 
become a great man — aye, a man so large and so strong, and with 
such long arms, that he reaches across the continent and embraces 
both oceans, and passes news from one hand to the other, invisibly 
to the eye, and in time almost imperceptible. Yes, in less than no 
time, for news which leaves Boston at twelve o'clock wiU arrive in 
Chicago at eleven ; and when the telegraph works directly through, 
news which leaves Boston or Xew York for San Francisco, will 
arrive here nearly thi'ee hours before it was sent, by solar time. 
If that is not sending news in less than no time, then what is it ? 
Well, sir. these discoveries in science are all babies jet, but who 
will tell us what they will be hereafter ? 

The analysis of light by a glass prism discovers the fact that 
every metal gives colored Imes in different parts of the spectrum. 
The chemists Kirchoff and Bunsen made investigations with this 
newly-applied test, and all of a sudden four new metals discovered 
within the past four years, have burst upon the riew of the ch^n- 
ist — namely, calcium, rubidium, thalhum, and indium. Xow who 
will say that they are of no use, because they are found as jet in 
very minute quantities ? Who will now tell us what the use of 
them is ? 

All these discoveries in science are powers which, in future tune, 
win come to be apphed to useful purposes. What was the use of 
aluminium when AYoehler obtained a few gi^ains of it, in 1827 ? It 
was only when Charles DeviUe produced it in large quantities that it 
became useful. It is now sold in large bars of metal, hght as glass, 
hard as iron, capable of being rolled out, or drawn into wire, and 



THE FESTIVAL. 61 

hammered into any form, so that the King of Denmark has actually 
a full suit of mail made of it — light almost as pasteboard, yet hard 
as iron. Its combination, as I before remarked, with copper makes 
one of the most beautiful imitations of gold. Its combination with 
silver makes an alloy much harder than the silver of coin, and 
therefore capable of receiving a higher polish, and is more suitable 
for engraving upon, and less hable to be affected by the action of 
sulphur. 

But let us see what more has been done. Science, sometimes, 
is interesting and useful to the human mind, though we cannot see 
any other application. Suppose, for instance, that, from the nature 
of light, coming from a burning body, you can ascertain what is 
burning, and you turn the analyzing prism upon the sun, or upon 
a star, or upon a comet, will it reveal the nature of the combustion 
gomg on in those bodies ? It does ; and the chemist now announces 
to you the substances burnmg in the sun, and also in the fixed 
stars. It is now considered as probable, that the heat of the sun is 
kept up by the combustion of meteoric masses continually falling 
into it. And these aerolites, as they are here called — these pieces 
of iron and other metals (meteoric masses) — it is now ascertained, 
are p*ortions of matter wandering in space — portions of the original 
great Nebular Ring of the Solar System — the chips of anciently- 
formed planets which are being gathered up m the ever-changing 
orbits of the worlds. They are matter which has come from regions 
where there is no air, for they are not oxygenated. Masses have 
been seen to fall lately in Dhurmsala, India, and were immediately 
picked up, and were so cold that they benumbed the hands of those 
who held them for a short time, since they had brought in them 
the intense cold of interplanetary space, though their exterior had 
been heated red-hot, even melted. There, then, was a very curious 
confirmation in regard to the temperature of interplanetary space, 
which Fourrier estimates as at least one hundred degrees below 
freezing. The Dhurmsala is analogous to the Chinese luxury — ice 
fried in batter. 

Let us see something more : our world is radiating off heat 
into space, continually. Its interior is intensely hot. At two miles 
below the surface it is of the temperature of boiling water ; at forty 
or fifty miles below, the whole substance is in a molten state, judg- 



62 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

ing from the regular increment of heat. What, then, is our position ? 
Our world is radiating off heat into space — cooling the fraction of 
a degree, a small fraction of a degree, per century, perhaps — ^but 
it is coohng. What will be the result ? The water which is now 
balanced by fire, would penetrate to the center of the earth, did 
not the heat keep it always within two miles of the surface ; and it 
has been experimentally ascertained, that if this whole globe were 
cooled down to the freezing point, the rocks would, by their absorb- 
ing power, take up all our oceans, and indeed, five times as much 
water as now exists on the surface of the earth, and the atmosphere ; 
then this world would be reduced to the condition the moon is now 
in — without water or air, and consequently uninhabitable to living 
beings. So walks the moon over our heads — the skeleton at the 
feast — showing this world its probable future. Be not alarmed, 
however, for it wiU not happen in our day ; and furthermore, as 
we do not know but there may be some recuperative power at work 
supplying the waste of heat, hence, we cannot fix the time when 
this event shall transpire. 

So, sir, I was saying, all science is power. Every atom of 
information we gain is power, which can be applied usefully or 
instructively on this globe ; and I think that things are useful 
which increase the sum of human knowledge, and give greater 
scope to intellectual enjoyment. I do not hold a thing to be 
useless, because it cannot be coined into money ; but things are 
useful which add to human happiness, or add to human knowledge. 

But, sir, as I was called out on a practical subject, I suppose I 
must speak practically ; and I cannot do better to-day than to close 
by offering the following sentiment : 

California. — Her mines of precious metals have astonished and enriched the 
world. Her agricultural products feed her inhabitants, and leave a large surplus 
for exportation ; and she has proved herself able to supply the whole country with 
excellent wine. May her mines, her vines, and her grain crops never cease to be 
productive. 

The President. — I suppose we all had a little fear when we 
thought about ether, that if the Professor could put us to sleep, he 
could not wake us up ; I think we are satisfied now that the waking 
power is equal to the sleeping power. [Applause.] 



THE FESTIVAL. 63 



The next sentiment is- 



The Judiciary of California. — Fearless and independent — they honor the 
State that has honored them. 

[Applause.] 

When, a few moments ago, the white mountains of New Hamp- 
shire appealed to the green mountains of Vermont, I know that you 
all were as anxious as I was, and will be as glad, now that the time 
has come, to hear the response of Judge Shafter. [Applause.] 

Judge Shafter. — I thank the President, by whom, or at least 
through whom, this sentiment, so complimentary to the Judicial 
Department of the government, has been introduced ; and I thank 
the gentlemen present for the indulgent manner in which the sen- 
timent has been received by them. If the commendation is de- 
served, we are obliged — and if not deserved, I suppose that we 
should consider ourselves obhged all the more emphatically. If 
there were any indications that the sentiment commended itself to 
the ladies — and I am not entirely certain whether there were or 
not — I confess myself at a loss to account for it. Our Court has 
not, as yet, made any demonstration in their interest or otherwise, 
on the subject of divorce or breach of promise of marriage. But 
I may be permitted to say that when any case, falling under either 
of those heads, shall come in due course of business before us, we 
shall look to it that he gets his deserts. [Applause.] I can only 
regret that my seniors upon the bench of which I am a member, 
are not present to respond to the sentiment hi language more fitting 
than may occur to my own thought. But they are detained by the 
exigencies of public business. I reflect, however, that if they were 
present, they would probably insist that I, as junior member, should 
according to judicial etiquette go ahead and open the argument. 
In speaking of myself as junior member, I do not mean to take an 
unhandsome advantage of the absence of my associates by palming 
myself off as being personally younger than even the oldest of them, 
for, sad to say, the only youth that remains to me, either to regret 
or rejoice in, is official altogether. 

But speaking of youth, I am reminded that we were all younger 
once than we are now. And it is to that fact doubtless that a large 
proportion of what may be called the emotional interest connected 



64 ASSOCIATED ALUMXI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

-with this occasion is to be attributed. The observances of the clay, 
this hall, the festivities now on foot within it, stir us as the heart of 
the Highland chieftain was stu-red as he Hstened to a song of the 
Childi-en of the Mist sung bj Annot Lisle in the castle of Darlin- 
varach. The trees of the tribal valleys in which he had once dwelt 
so pleasantly with his people, rustled their gTeen leaves in the song, 
and the streams were there with the sound of all their waters. We 
are affected by a kindred enchantment. Harvard — dating almost 
from Plymouth Eock, — Yale — that opened its gates not long after 
the Charter Oak became historical, — Dartmouth — ^the educator of 
the defender of its own charity, and the defender of yet another 
foundation deeper, vaster, and more fraught with human charity 
than that, — AVilliams, seated in the American Arcadia^-and yet 
other beautiful mothers of deserving sons, though absent to the 
bodily sense, are present to the soul, and reveal themselves in its 
miiTors as distinctly as the loved and lost appeared to view in the 
magic glass of Agrippa. Their ideal presence is welcome — and 
thrice welcome their virtual presence ui the persons of so many 
that wear their honoi*s. 

But there is another Alma Mater — here — on the Pacific Coast. 
Cisiilpine by position, she has in her veins the noblest of Transalpine 
blood. Her heart is moved by a great purpose, and the light of 
assured hope is in. her eye at last. She is already surrounded by a 
Httle band of graduates and disciples. She but a little older than 
they. We to-day are her guests. She gives us audience here in 
her own hall. God bless her ! May the number of her children be 
greatly magnified. Gentlemen, let us aid in maldng more pleasant 
her already pleasant places, and in building high the walls of her 
future habitation, tiK in the language of one to whom I have 
already alluded, '' it shall meet the sun m his coming, and part- 
mg day linger and play on its summit.*' 

I am iaduced, by the remarks of 'Sli. Stebbios, to hazard a 
word upon the subject of the general relations of this Institution. 
I cannot speak from the book, but still on information which I con- 
sider rehab le. I believe them to be exactly what I conceive they 
ought to be. This college is pledged — ^but the pledge is not to 
the past. A pledge of that character, if given, would fjril, as the 
lawyers say, for want of parties. This Institution is not the thrall 



THE FESTIVAL. 65 

of the medieval. It is not the bonded patron of the encydical. 
While it does not disregard the wisdom of past ages, all its pledges 
are to the present, and to the future, constantly reveahng itself in 
the present. It is pledged to the freedom of the reason, and to 
the absolute freedom of the human conscience. It will seek neither 
to overawe nor impede either by mere dogmas, but stands pledged 
to the highest development of both, by the best methods ; and will 
use the wisdom of the past, sacred and profane, together with all 
the wisdom of the present, in working out a redemption of the 
pledge. This Institution is pledged to Christianity. But the 
pledge, as I understand it, is not polemical, or dogmatic. It is to 
Christianity in that most beautiful and exhaustive exhibition of it 
contained in the Sermon on the Mount. But, again — and it is a 
matter of no httle moment, in view of the lessons of the last four 
years — this College is pledged to the Country — to the nation as 
such. The pledge has not been uttered formally, perhaps, but it 
has been fully manifested by conduct springing from patriotic 
impulses. The pledge is to the flag, and to all the great ideas of 
which it is the sign. During the last four weary, but now tri- 
umphant years, the national banner has been kept, here, hard up 
to the truck of the flag-staff — in storm and sunshine — in vic- 
tory, and in humiliation and disaster. We may all well take it 
for granted that there will never be a chair within the walls of this 
institution for instruction in the science, or rather in the art and 
mystery of high treason. It will not be a corrupter of youth. It 
will not poison the streams of public virtue, by poisoning the fount- 
ains. The youth that will be committed, from generation to gen- 
eration, to its care and culture, will be trained. to love their country. 
They will be taught the maxims and molded in the methods of 
patriotism. And in the hereafter, should the country be assailed by 
foreign or domestic foes, in its mtegritj, in any of its rights, or in 
its honor, her sons will have no ambition to gratify except to be 
numbered among the statesmen who shall guide, the heroes who 
shall defend, and the martyi^s whose gl<:>rious privilege it shall be to 
die for it. [Cheers.] And should their ideals lead them to any 
higher aspirations, it will be to add theirs to the roll of perhaps 
half a hundred names that have lived since the time of Adam, 

E 



66 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

" the few the immortal names that were not born to die." The 
names of heroes, sages, prophets, 

* * * " Side by side 
" Who darkened nations when they died." 

To that list our country has abeady had the honor of contributing 
two names — that of Washington, and of another whose world-wide 
obsequies have not yet been completed. Whose shall be the name 
of the third ? There will be a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and 
so on. But they will come only with the ages. With the great 
social upheavals corresponding to the geological epochs, marking the 
incoming of new and better civilizations. They will appear when- 
ever there is a Red Sea to be crossed — whenever a people, having 
outgrown its Egypt, shall march ofi" in search of its Canaan. But 
though we cannot tell whose will be the name of the third to be 
added by this country to the roU of the immortals, yet we can tell 
what manner of man he must be. That is deducible from the 
address to which we have listened to-day, and is taught by all 
human observation and experience. Adopting the analysis of Dr. 
Channing, he will be great in intellect, great in action, and greater 
still in goodness. The death of a ruler or leader, great in intellect 
and in action only, may well be a darkness to his own people, but 
to cast the nations in ecHpse, greatness in goodness must be super- 
added. 

But, Mr. President, I see that I am becoming discursive, and I 
beg leave to close by remarking, that the incidents of this day will 
furnish us with subjects for pleasant reflection for many days to 
come ; and I venture to express the hope and the trust that the day, 
with hke observances, will return and ever continue to return with 
the regularity of the year. [Applause.] 

The President. — 

Classical Science and the Learned Professions. — The Hberal professions 
derive their nomenclature, their technology, and the best expressions of their max- 
ims, from the languages of Greece and Rome. Classic ground is the only field that 
is common to them all ; and classical learning the bond of that social Free Masonry 
which unites them in one fraternity throughout the world. 

Mr. John W. Dwinelle will respond to this sentiment. 



THE FESTIVAL. 67 

Mr. DwiNELLE. — 31r. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen : In 
the absence of the recognized President of the College, and owing 
to the illness of Mr. Willey, the Vice-President, it has been deputed 
to me to initiate the graduating class into one of the secrets of 
college education. You will observe that this text speaks of Free 
Masonry. Now, I am about to communicate to the graduating 
class the best-kept secret that ever was known in the world — a 
secret that has been kept three hundred years, and never been 
divulged outside of the Alumni of colleges. I understand that Free 
Masons are bound together by oaths of the most bloody kind ; but 
their great secret has got out — w^e have all heard of their gridiron. 
[Laughter.] I am told that the Odd Fellows have pledges among 
themselves of the most solemn character ; but we all know about 
their goat. [Laughter.] But this secret that I am about to com- 
municate — that has never been divulged — " ladies present," some 
one says. Who cares for that ? Who ever heard of a lady betray- 
ing a secret ? [Laughter.] Why, I appeal to you, fellow- Alumni, 
who are married men, if any one of you had a secret, wouldn't he 
go to that one woman whom he esteems the jewel of her sex, and 
get her to help him keep it ? And if there are any young men 
here who are not married — and I fear there are, for I see an ex- 
pression of sadness come over the countenances of some of them — 
I would advise each and every of them to go and find some estimable 
young woman, and confide to her the choicest secrets of his heart. 
[Laughter.] And I would observe here, in passing — in speaking 
of this secret that has never been divulged outside of the Alumni 
of colleges — that when we formed our society this morning, we 
resolved that the graduates of West Point were Alumni ; so that 
our distinguished guest of the Army need not now retire. [Great 
laughter.] 

Formerly the graduates of colleges. Alumni, were considered as 
belonging to the Order of Knighthood; and the word bachelor, 
latinized into baccalaureus, is fi-om the French words has cheva- 
lier — has chevalier, so that it was the lowest order of knighthood. 
And when a person was about to graduate, he was compelled, as 
other knights were, to watch by the altar of a church all night, the 
night before he took his degree, and to take a solemn oath that he 
never would betray this secret that I am now about to communicate 



68 ASSOCIATED ALOIXI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

to these graduates. Latterly, such has been the advance of ideas, 
that instead of compeUing the bachelors to go through this cere- 
mony, we now communicate this secret to them on then- pledge of 
honor. Xow, the secret is this : these young gentlemen who are just 
about to gTaduate have been spending some six years in studying 
classic lore — the hterature, history, logic, and oratory of Greece and 
Rome. The secret is this: there never were any Greeks or Romans 
[laughter] — not but there were places called Athens and Rome, and 
countries called Greece and Rome ; but the Greeks and Romans 
that we read of, and that all this great body of Hterature is about, 
never existed at all. This great body of literatm-e, called Classic 
Literature, was a thing got up in the middle ages, by some of the 
monks of the Roman Cathohc Church, just before the Reformation. 
The idea was this : that educated men had no bond of sympathy ; 
nothing to unite them ; no bond of scholarship ; no general medi- 
um of communication ; no learned language peculiar to them as 
educated men — so they concluded that they would invent such 
languages, and that they would translate back into them all the 
knowledge they possessed — everything in science ; everything in 
poetry ; all the traditions they had from the Arabs, and that came 
to them from Lidia ; and they would call those Classics — Classic 
Literature — and they did it. [Laughter.] But it was done in a 
very bunghng sort of a manner. !N"ow, when George Psalmanazar 
came to London, a hundred years ago, he published a book in which 
he claimed to be a native of the Island of Formosa, in which he 
gave a pretended account of the civil and natural history of that 
island. He pubhshed, also, a dictionary of the language of the 
people of Formosa, and a grammar, and some other books m their 
language. Well, it was all done by one man, and it was all correct 
and consistent, and it was never detected from any internal evi- 
dence it contained ; and it never would have been known that it 
was not a genuine language of the people of Formosa, if it had not 
been discovered that he had never been in Formosa, and that he 
had been hving in Europe all the time he pretended to have been 
in Formosa. But when the monks undertook to do theu* work of 
inventmg two new languages, they had to divide their labor, and 
so, inevitably, there were a great many inconsistencies in then- work. 
I remember when I was a boy, and had just graduated, the Presi- 



THE FESTIVAL. 69 

dent of the college lent me one of his books, which contained a 
secret history of the matter, which gave a most amusing account 
of the troubles of the poor monks when they met to compare their 
work, and found it so full of inconsistencies, and so much like an 
irreconcilable jumble. " The second declension ends in us, mascu- 
line," said one ; " but I have done all my work on the understand- 
ing that it ended in itm," said another : so, to reconcile these two, 
it was agreed that the second declension should have two forms — 
us, masculine, and urn, neuter. '' But," said a third worker, " I 
have got a declension ending in us both masculine and feminine, 
and in u, neuter ; and I can't possibly make it conform to your 
second declension." So it was agreed that that declension should 
stand as the fourth declension of Latin nouns. 

That reminds me of a little story of an incident which happened 
to myself. A gentleman, who was . an educated man, was reading 
a newspaper, and he says to me : " How curious it is that people, 
and many of them educated, will neglect their Latin Grammar. 
"Why," says he, '^ omnibus, you know, is the name of a useful 
vehicle they have in cities ; but instead of using the word omnihi 
for the plural of omnibus, they have written omnibuses." " Oh," 
says I, " you forget that omnibus is a noun of the fourth declension, 
and that the plural also ends in ^fs." " Well," said he, " that is a 
fact ; I had forgotten that." 

And so these monks, when they made up this language, had to 
reconcile their differences by making these different declensions ; 
and when they had anything they couldn't decline, or which didn't 
come within any of the " exceptions," they would put it into the 
third declension — which thus became a sort of hotch-pot of all their 
troubles in the declension of Latin nouns ; and out of this same fact, 
that so many men were engaged in the work, came so many other 
troublesome inconsistencies, which never would be reconciled, but 
which were patched up after an empirical fashion, by the invention 
of the theory of irregular verbs, of defective verbs, of indeclinable 
nouns, of nouns of two forms of declension, and the hke ingenious 
expedients. 

Sometimes, even these monks got the two languages mixed. I 
remember now a very striking instance of this. You all know that 
Horace says — at least I suppose you all know it — but if you do not, 



70 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

I assure you Zdo, for I looked it up this morning [laughter] ; and 
after this assurance, I can truly say, you all know that Horace says 
of a certain Daumis : '' agrestium regnavit populorum.''^ Now, 
when this book, called Horace, was produced by the monk who had 
translated into it all the wit and worldly philosophy that the world 
then contained, one of his fellow-monks said to him : " How do you 
gOY em popular um f " " By regnavit^ of course ; that governs the 
genitive," was the answer. "It does in Greek, but it don't in 
Latin," was the reply. But it was agreed to let it stand. It was 
considered such a capital joke to make it appear on the face of his 
works that the psmc?o-Horace understood Greek so well that he 
sometimes, either unconsciously or by affectation, used its forms ! 

I hear a gentleman say, " How about the New Testament in 
Greek ?" Why the New Testament was not written in Greek. It 
was orginally written in Hebrew, and I will show it. Matthew was 
a poor man, and Peter, he was an ignorant fisherman — they were 
nothing but fishermen. And John, and James, and Paul, they 
were all poor men, and all were Hebrews. Do you suppose that, 
being Hebrews, they would undertake to write the Gospel in 
Greek ? Then there is another thing : The Greek Testament, as 
we have got it, abounds in expressions that are not Greek ; that is, 
not consistent with other Greek, and these they call Hebraisms. 
Of course, they are Hebraisms, because the Testament was trans- 
lated out of Hebrew. [Laughter.] But there is something more 
convincing than that. Pliny tells a story about a young man, of 
the ancient City of Philadelphia, who went out hunting and got 
lost in the forest. And there came on a storm, and he crept into 
a cave and went to sleep. When he awoke a lion came in, and 
he found that he was in a lion's den. The lion was holding up one 
of its paws, which appeared to be swollen. This young man, see- 
ing that something was the matter, examined the paw, and found 
that there was a thorn in it. He took out the thorn, and tore off 
a piece of his tunic and bound up the wound. Afterwards ^he 
undertook to leave, but the lion would not let him go, but kept him 
there several days. Finally, after the wound in the lion's foot had 
healed, the lion got up and looked at the man as though he should 
follow him, and started out. The young man followed until he 
reached the edge of the forest, and then, looking off, he saw the City 



THE FESTIVAL. 71 

of Philadelphia in the distance. This shows a great deal of kindness 
and generosity on the part of the lion, more than we should ordi-' 
narilj expect to see. But Plinj says, " This story is true. I know 
it is true, for I have been to the City of Philadelphia, and I there 
saw a picture commemorating the circumstance." Now I know 
that the New Testament was translated out of the Hebrew, because 
I have seen the Hebrew Testament, and if any of you doubt it you 
can go to the Odd Fellows' Library, in San Francisco, and see it 
too ; and if that is not conclusive, I have no other evidence to offer. 
But after all, these monks did us a great deal of good. It is 
true that the sciences derive their nomenclature and their technol- 
ogy from the learned languages. It is true that we are indebted 
to them for great benefits. It is true that for a long time the Latin 
language was the universal polite language of the world. It was 
the language of science, the language of literature, the language of 
medicine, the language of the law, the language of theology. It 
embalmed all that was most precious in all the literature of the 
world. It is the bond of union between the educated men of the 
world. It is the link, the tie, the mystery of the social Free Ma- 
sonry that binds us together as a band of brothers. And with 
the permission of these gentlemen, the Alumni, the graduates, and 
ladies, the gentlemen of the Faculty of this College will go on and 
teach these languages as heretofore. [Applause.] 

The President. — I am looking, in the expectation that there 
is a lance to be broken in reply to that. Prof. Kellogg is here 
somewhere, and various other professors. Where is Prof. Durant ? 
Such a challenge as that certainly is not to go unheeded. [Calls 
for Prof. Durant, who was not then present, and Prof. Kellogg.] 

Prof. Kellogg. — Mr. President : I was too completely stunned 
by the first part of the speech of Mr. Dwindle to have any thoughts 
left, and am only now enabled to rise because of the kind per- 
mission given at its close. I had prepared some remarks with a 
good deal of care, and a large expenditure of time ; but, not trust- 
ing myself to extempore speaking, I have had them struck off and 
placed before you. [Referring to the Catalogue of Graduates.] 
I hope you will all take a kindly interest in the revision of my little 
speech, and help me make it still more worthy of pubHcation. 



72 ASSOCIATED ALUMXI OF THE PACIEIC COAST. 

The Presidext. — It is very certain that Prof. Kellogg got out 
'of that very nicely. But if it is not to be taken as a cognovit, an 
admission of all that Mr. Dwinelle has said, then I can not tell what 
it means. 

The Colleges of the East axd the College of California. — If any one has 
aught to say why these should not be joined together m bands of holy friendship 
and perpetual love, let him now speak or else forever after hold his peace! 

The Rev. ]\Ir. Benton v,i\l respond to that sentiment : 

Bev. J. A. Bextox, of San Francisco. — ilfr. President^ Ladies^ 
and G-entlemen : It is told that a Hibernian, a strong Cathohc, no 
doubt, had purchased a cow of a gentleman who was somewhat of 
a Protestant, and desiring to conform her to her new cu'cumstances, 
he proceeded to sprinkle her with holy water. But, by mistake, he 
used aqua fortis. Witnessing the excitement and contortions of 
the animal, he exclaimed, " Howly mother of Moses, isn't the 
Protestant strong in her yet !" [Laughter.] So, sir, on occa- 
sions like this, when gentlemen have been freely using water that 
is somewhat strong — whether it is coffee, tea, or something else — 
I am led to exclaim, seeing their fervors and listening to their 
speeches, "But isn't the sophomore strong in them yet I" Well, 
sir, I am glad to see it ; for the sophomore is the period of efflores- 
cence, of aspiration and ambition — the period when every thing 
comes bursting out of a man that has any promise in him. Now 
to have that come freshly out of an elderly man is a first-rate 
thing. And I tell you what it is, Alumni, gentlemen who have 
been educated, are the youngest people on the globe. It is the 
prerogative of learning, one of the beauties of science, one of the 
charms of philosophy, that it never grows old, never is stale, that 
we never become tired of it. It belongs to our nature as men, and 
it is the glory of our race that it has these elements of beauty and 
bhss that no time can dim, no incrustation of age can keep impris- 
oned, which bursts up, heaves up, like the lava in a volcano, and 
cannot be kept under. This is the promise of immortality. Knowl- 
edge, science, pliilosophy, these are everlasting fountains of joy. 
Joy never grows old, and is never distasteful. It has no monot- 
onies, no deadness in its nature. By it we enter into the treasures 
of truth, high thought, noble feehng, always simple, always young. 



THE FESTIVAL. 73 

always beautiful, always glorious. Therefore, I say that this brief 
return of the sophomore period is not 'altogether an example of 
evil, but rather indicative of brightness and blessedness in store. 
[Cheers.] 

I was to speak, sir, about the sentiment — whether or not the 
bans should be forbidden. It sometimes comes to pass in the expe- 
rience of gentlemen of my calling, that they are obliged — with 
whatever satisfaction they may have — to marry December and 
May. If May consents, they have nothing more to say ; and now, 
sir, if this fair lady, on this coast, young though she may be, if she 
consents to the union, who shall forbid the bans ? We certainly 
cannot, who have watched her growth, and her progress, and who 
know the charms she has — whether perceived or not at the distance 
of those older colleges which we incarnate as bridegroom. We, 
who have cherished this fair daughter, certainly shall say nothing 
to hinder these bans. We shall not forbid them ; and, if they 
desire it across the continent, we will have them married by tele- 
graph. Therefore, since none forbid, by common consent w^e will 
consider them married. And, " What God hath joined together 
let not man put asunder." [Cheers and laughter.] 

The President. — In this connection, and in response to this 
sentiment, I am reminded of a sentiment that was offered last year, 
and which Avas so good that those who then heard it will be glad to 
hear it again, and those who did not hear it will be doubly glad 
that it is repeated : 

" The Old Roger Williams College. — Toast it JBrowny 

The Rev. Mr. McAlHster is bound by every tie to say a good 
word for Brown University. 

Rev. F. M. McAllister. — Mr. Chairman : I supposed, sir, 
my excuse of " not fre'pared " had been accepted, but I am to 
understand from this that you are really an Alumnus, and are versed 
in the tricks of collegiate life. I have frequently gone to my Pro- 
fessor, and said to him : " I am not feeling well, and would like to 
be excused ; " and if he made no reply, I went off, enjoying myself 
under the impression that I was free from duty for the day ; but 
when at recitation he suddenly called upon me to answer some 



74 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

questions, what could I do but flunk, as the bojs saj, and take my 
seat again. Being called upon in this way to-day, I may be forced 
to follow my old practice when unprepared. But, sir, as I think of 
my college, and remember that I am in\dted to represent it on the 
Pacific Coast, I would be ashamed to have my Professors hear that 
I had failed to respond to a toast of this character. I regard, sir, 
the University which I represent as embodying principles which, 
perhaps, few others in the country have embodied. You have 
mentioned a name, Roger Williams, the man who introduced on 
this continent a toleration in religious subjects, which I trust may 
prevail everywhere, and in all time. [Applause.] 

It is this great principle, sir, which has influenced me in my 
whole ministry, although belonging to a church which is strongly 
conservative. I have been taught by one who imbibed the princi- 
ple through his predecessors in office, direct from Roger Wilhams, 
and who was in favor of practically inculcating it upon all. When 
I think of the honored President of that college, sir, and the prin- 
ciples which he enforced upon his scholars, I am happy in being 
permitted to speak to this assembly. I am truly proud to represent 
him to-night. 

He had three great leading principles, which he always argued ; 
always maintained ; always estabhshed. They appeared to be sim- 
ply theories, at that time ; but no one could escape the force of his 
conclusions. They left an indehble impression, an abiding convic- 
tion. The first of these principles was that of Universal Freedom ; 
the second. Toleration in Religion ; and the third. Universal Peace. 
Although I have exercised my ministry — I am speaking, perhaps, 
egotistically — where slavery existed, I have always held to the prin- 
ciple of freedom. [Applause.] I have not, perhaps, as a minister 
of the gospel, expressed my opinion as to the means by which this 
evil should be eradicated ; but I am confident that in all my course 
I have consistently adhered, whether North or South, East or 
West, to the great principle of Universal Freedom. 

The second great principle inculcated by my President was 
Religious Toleration. This College, I understand, is established on 
this principle. The very fact that I am here to-night is a proof 
that toleration. Religious Toleration, is to be proclaimed as one of 
the Articles of Faith in this Institution. The fact that the Orator 



THE FESTIVAL. 75 

of the day is taken from a denomination which, perhaps, has not 
sent ten students to this College, is an evidence that the Trustees 
intend, impartially, to adhere to this proclamation. 

One great truth has now been worked out — that of Universal 
Freedom. The second must follow, and that is, the union of all 
ranks of religionists under the Gospel Banner — that the believers 
of every creed under heaven shall one day be persuaded to recog- 
nize one Fold and one Shepherd. If, sir, you study the theological 
thought of the day, you will find that every clergyman, whatever 
his denomination or creed, is looking to this great result; and 
societies are formed to promote this Rehgious Union. How is it 
to be accomplished ? Not by the sacrifice of a single principle ; 
but by each man standing in his place, and declaring, definitely 
and scripturally, what he himself believes, and what he himself 
means ; and by striving to exercise that charity which is the chief 
of virtues, and the very bond of perfectness. Faith, Hope, and 
Charity ; the greatest of these is Charity — this is the power which 
will bring us together ; which has warmed our hearts to-night ; and 
which makes us feel that we are already, in a measure, of one Fold, 
and under one great Shepherd. 

Peace is the last principle of the three inculcated by President 
Wayland, whose works on Moral Science and Political Economy are 
world-wide, and whose precepts on these great themes are house- 
hold words. There is a chapter in his Moral Science^ which is 
omitted by the Professor in the Academy at West Point, because 
it declares non-resistance to be the duty of man. It has been found 
necessary, in preparing men for the army, to expunge this chapter ; 
but I believe, by all you have expressed to-night, that each soldier 
of the United States is gladly looking forward to peace, a Universal 
Peace ; and I am convinced that our distinguished guest, who 
represents the Army of the United States, w^ould willingly turn- 
his sword into a plough-share, and his spear into a pruning-hook. 
[Cheers.] 

It is our bounden duty to speak for peace. I am aware, how- 
ever, that a reverend gentleman, who has preceded me, regards 
waf as a good — bringing great and beneficial results. But he 
knows in his heart that it is but a dire necessitv — a scourge of 
God ; and I suppose the Government intend history to record the 



76 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

fact that it never would have drawn the sword unless it had been 
forced to this bloody arbitration. And frequently now, on receiving 
letters from my native State, relating the sufferings of the people, 
(my heart bleeds for their suffering) , I am forced to look to the 
great truth — that high, recorded truth, — not with ^ any spirit of 
unfriendHness, but with the deepest feehng of compassion for those 
who have appealed to this arbitrator — that " they who take the 
sword shall perish by the sword." My reverend brother, to whom 
I have alluded, would give me his hand to-night, and would confess 
that it is the dearest wish of his heart for us all to carry out the 
spirit of the angehc proclamation : " Peace on earth, and good 
will to men." 

The President of whom I have spoken to-night, Francis Way- 
land, has now retired from the faculty of the college. He is a man 
whom, as you all are aware, sickness has laid aside ; yet, still he is 
great in his sickness. These leading truths which I have enunci- 
ated, I heard him proclaim three years ago, in the presence of the 
Governors of four States of our Union — Gov. Andrews, of Massa- 
chusetts ; Gov. Washburne, of Maine ; Gov. Sprague of Rhode 
Island, and Gov. Chase, of New Hampshire. I recall an incident 
which proves the greatness of the man — an incident which humbled 
me as I was speaking to him. After the Commencement Exercises, 
as is customary, we all called on the ex-President at his residence, 
to pay him our respects. I inquired after his health. He replied : 
" My son, I have been sick. My brain has been affected. I am 
not what I once was." Such a confession made me feel that I was 
in the presence of a man who had labored all of a lifetime, not 
merely to build up a literary name, and to prove to the world that 
he had a great mind, but he had labored to advocate the dictates of 
a great heart. It is the great heart of the world, which will carry 
out the noble principles of Freedom, Toleration, and Peace. God 
grant that they may be embodied in this Institution ; and if so, I 
am sure the educated youth of Cahfornia will be sent forth on a 
mission which shall meet the sanction of Heaven, and shall bless 
and ennoble our fatherland. 

The President. — A subject of such general, universal interest 
as this should be responded to yet more generally. Prof. Williams, 
of St. Ignatius' College, is here. May we not hear from him ? 



THE FESTIVAL. 77 

Prof. Williams asked to be excused on account of ill-health. 

The President. — The College of California has not jet been 
heard from, and the Vice-President is on mj left. 

The Vice-President. — You may be sure, Mr. President, that 
I shall respond on this occasion, confessing to begin with that I am 
glad enough to have the opportunity. We are pleased to welcome 
you all, friends of learning, to this our second festival. We are 
thankful that w^e can open our doors and invite you to come in and 
sit down at this social reunion. Welcome now ! welcome always ! 

You have taken occasion, sir, to remind us of our relation to 
the colleges at the East. Others have spoken generously upon the 
same theme. We hope, I will say in behalf of this College, we 
hope, in due time, to prove ourselves worthy, in some measure, to 
be mentioned along with them. 

We remember those venerable seats of learning with sincere 
respect and affection. We see the noble work they have done. 
We honor them for it. And we seek to repeat it here on these 
shores, and if possible to improve upon it. We are away by our- 
selves, and we hope it will be made to appear by and by that those 
who are born and grow up here are not behind those who receive 
their culture in the very best colleges of the country. 

And we are encouraged to hope this all the more confidently, 
when we see so many educated men encouraging us by their presence 
and their cheer. We are reminded by this that the college spirit 
is ahve in the country. We know that liberal learning has friends. 
We are animated when we see that the hurry and dissipation of this 
California business-life has not effaced the old love of letters. And 
be assured, Mr. President, and gentlemen, this annual reunion is 
kindling it into new life. 

And now, since you are here, let me talk a little with you in 
confidence. The cause of sound learning has strong claims on you. 
You know its value. You understand its importance ; and you 
are its natural advocates and supporters. 

Take this Institution, for example. It can prosper only as it 
secures your confidence, your esteem, and your help. It needs to 
depend on you as its friends and advocates throughout the country. 
When the long weeks and months of term-time go by, and we are 



78 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

working on our up-hill way, it seems often as if it would be refreshing 
indeed if we could meet you, assembled together as now, and let 
the greatness of our undertaking plead with you for your earnest 
cooperation. 

There needs to be created a public sentiment in favor of learn- 
ing. It should be so held up before the youth as to be attractive. 
It should be held in such esteem that the boys will be inspired with 
the proper ambition to devote themselves to study. If the college 
is honored by the educated men of the State, it will attract the 
attention of our young men, and awaken them to the noble resolu- 
tion to accomplish themselves in learning. They will begin to fit 
for college. We shall hear of them here and there, aiming toward 
the acquisition of a liberal education. There will be a demand for 
instruction in our high schools and academies to prepare young 
men to enter college. And this influence is precisely what needs 
to be seen just now in this State. 

There are comparatively few as yet in whom the college spirit 
is awakened. The high motive of self-culture is not inspiring many 
minds. The boys need to be talked to about this. They need to 
have it pointed out to them, that there is a standard of mental 
attainment and culture which they can reach only as they begin 
early, and persevere through a prolonged course of thorough study. 
They need to be waked up to the noble purpose to reach this 
standard, and by no means to lose the opportunity of their youth. 
If the boys hear you talking in this way in their schools, at their 
examinations, and wherever you can get their ear upon this subject, 
the brightest of them, the best scholars, will be stirred up by it, and 
it wont be long before you'll hear from them. They'll be inquiring 
of you about their getting ready to go to college ! I don't say any 
thing now about your persuading people to give money to endow the 
College. I don't put that first. We'll talk about that by and by. 
But now wake up the bright-eyed, quick-thinking California boys to 
the ambition to prepare for college, and come and ask admission. 
Let them throng our doors and fill our lecture-rooms, and trust to 
me for it, the money will be forthcoming ! Endowments will not be 
long in coming in when the boys are here, demanding the privileges 
of their birthright as American youth. If they ask bread they shaU 
not be turned away with a stone. 



THE FESTIVAL. 79 

Well, it is good to live in these years of revived patriotism, 
when the spirit of glorious liberty is so in the ascendant ! And 
is it not somewhat remarkable that the spirit of learning triumphs 
also ? While our noble young students have laid aside their books 
and gone out from their college classes, buckling on their armor, 
and given up their lives for their country, our men of wealth have 
been pouring out their treasures in gifts to the colleges with an 
unheard-of hberality. They come with their tens, their scores, 
their hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even their half millions. 

When before was such a year ever known as the past for gifts to 
the colleges ? Nor is it beyond what is reasonable. The object is 
worthy of all this munificence, and more. The country begins to 
appreciate these institutions, and our wealthy, noble-hearted citizens 
are furnishing them with the means to do some justice to their 
great undertaking. In due time, Cahfornia will not be behind in 
this evidence of her esteem for learning and the noblest elements 
of a Christian civilization. Nor ought we to wait long for these 
endowments and this maturing of our institutions of liberal learn- 
ing. Let us have them while we Hve. Let us see them grow 
under our own hand. Let us see the youth showing what they 
can make of themselves by means of them. We may just as well 
do this as to let these institutions get on only at a snail's pace, 
a reproach to our spirit of enterprise, and an exhibition of narrow- 
mindedness on our part, before the rising generation and before the 
country. 

Mr. President, an awakened interest and a united effort on the 
part of educated men creating and cultivating a right public senti- 
ment through the State touching this matter, will build the College 
and mature it for its great work in our own time ! It will bring in 
the youth from all quarters to seek its advantages, and enrich the 
State in the noblest form of manhood ! So learning pleads with 
her own children for their help in rearing her institutions in this 
new and thriving country. 

But I must stop talking. Only let me say again, this Institu- 
tion is glad to be surrounded by this circle of friends. It will feel 
the good influence of this gathering during all the year which now 
commences, and it will hope to see you again, and many more with 
you, when the year shall be completed. 



80 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

And may we not ask your attendance upon our Commencement 
Exercises also. I need not tell you how important and valuable is 
the presence of educated men in force on these occasions. It 
lends a healthful stimulus to the whole Institution. But I wont 
detain you longer when there are so many present whom we desire 
to hear without fail. 

The President. — 

The Pioneers of California. — Though they had " gold in their eye," they had 
education in their hearts ; while seeking the one, they have constantly proved their 
love for the other. 

Joseph W. Winans, Esq., will respond. 

Mr. WiNANS. — Amid the swelling and accumulating tides of 
population now gathered upon this coast, amid the universal spread 
of art and science, amid the brilliance of this scene of literary 
splendor, amid the constant progress and improvement of this 
thriving State, there is a band of scarred and war-worn veterans 
whose ranks are continually growing thinner by dispersion and by 
death. They are the Pioneers of California. Thirty years ago a 
bold and adventurous spirit came a wanderer to these shores. He 
penetrated far into their inmost wilds, where the bear and the 
panther roamed through the arches of the forest, and the red man 
dwelt an undisputed monarch of the scene. There he established 
a settlement. He was then in the prime of his existence and in 
the fullness of his strength. That man, now venerable for his 
years, and far in the decline of Hfe, will be known while history 
retains upon its record the name of John A. Sutter. He and 
those who wrought with him were the founders of a mighty empire, 
the grandeur of which can only be conceived by the imagination, 
and the splendor whereof will radiate in broader and still broader 
effulgence through the commg and the glorious future. He went 
into the midst of that primeval wilderness upon his grand eventful 
mission. He dipped his hands into the waters of the Sacramento, 
and found that, like the fabled Pactolus of old, its sands were 
bright with gold. So soon as this wonderful discovery was made, 
an exodus commenced among the nations of the earth towards 
these shores. Standing in the van of these civic crusaders, behold 
the Pioneers of California. They traveled the trackless wastes of 



THE FESTIVAL. 81 

ocean for thousands of miles, upon a new and strange adventure. 
They passed in multitudes over the broad pathways of the sterile 
plains. They came here, a resolute and daring band, from every 
State, from every clime, seeking a new field for enterprise and 
action — turning away from friends and kindred, and all the heart 
holds dear — abjuring forever all their earlier ties, and habits, and 
associations — to lay the foundations of an empire upon this Western 
shore that should become the greatest and the proudest which the 
world had ever seen. To them much is due from those who since 
possess the land, from those who are present here to-day. They 
were the artificers of our destinies, our fortunes, and all we now 
enjoy. They came hither, after passing through unexampled toil, 
and danger, and privation, to clear the way for those who should 
succeed them. 

You said, Mr. President, that they had gold in their eye. 
Many of them, alas ! have it there now — ^but there alone. They 
have toiled and suffered, undergone all the vicissitudes of life, 
endured its heaviest trials, and yet little remains to them but the 
contemplation of the grandeur of that achievement in which they 
had the boldness and the vigor to engage. 

You said, Mr. President, that they have education in their 
hearts. Yes, sir ; theirs is the rich and varied learning of expe- 
rience — they read not merely from books, but from the human heart. 
Men were the subjects of their training, and human nature was 
their theme. They have given us an amount of rich, diversified 
experience, such as has been rarely realized in human annals. 
They stand among us now, a small and separated band, feeble, it 
is true, in numbers, and growing ever feebler, but giants in their 
energy and strength. They have given a Field to the bench ; a 
Sherman to the army ; aye, and a Sheridan, too — that lurid cloud 
of war that has so often burst upon the battle-field, scattering death 
and desolation in his path. They have wrought out great events 
for you and all mankind ; and they should live, as they will live, 
in the gratitude of the future ; — they should live, as they do five, 
in the hearts of those now present, and the present generation. 
For what they have done, and what they have undertaken, they 
deserve to have their names and the record of their deeds trans- 
mitted, as an imperishable legacy, to all posterity. 



82 ASSOCIATED ALOrSI OF THE PACinC COAST. 

The Peesel'E^t:. — The next sennment is — 

The Gospel of Peace. — Its njinisters have given the Mghest proof of their 
piety and patriotism, by working, praying, and. when necessary, fighting, for the 
peace they love so well 

[Applause.] 

The Rev. Mi\ Beckwith ^ivill respond to that. [Cheers.] 

AIi\ Beckwith. — Mr. Chainnaiij I rise onlT to protest against 
this, unless it is a militaiy necessity, and we have learned not to pro- 
test acrainst militarv necessities in these dars. Just as I was sittinor 
down to this table, some aid of yours comes thi-usting between me 
and my dinner a toast. Xow. I want you to understand that that 
kind of toast don't go well with sn-a wherries. It took away my 
appetite more suddenly than a certain dispatch from one R. E. Lee 
destroyed the appetite of certain parties in Richmond one Sunday- 
morning not long ago. I must protest that it is not fail' ; and I 
don't thank you, as you have been so often thanked this evening 
by others, for calling upon your humble servant to respond to this 
toast ; and I am also sure that the audience wiU not thank you for 
putting upon me this burden. Still I will say, that if there is one 
part of the community that has occasion to be thankful for the 
events of the last four years, it is ministers of the gospel of peace. 
They have disenthralled the pulpit. Tou all remember very well 
that there were times, and they are not far gone, when we could 
not say what we wanted to say in oui' own pulpits, and to our owi^i 
people ; but, thank G-od, that day is past. There is no talk now 
about '• preaching pohtics.*' except it be to condemn those who do 
not preach it. So I say we have reason to be thankful for what 
the last four years have done for the pulpit of this gospel of peace 
which we preach. 

Tou have done us the honor to say of us in that toast, that 
we work for the right, pray for the right, and, if need be, fight 
for the right. I remember that this is the gospel of peace ; and 
yet I remember the blessed words of Him who said : '• I come not 
to send peace, but a sword." And those are beautiful words which 
have been repeated in our hearing this evening : which we aU love 
to say over, '• Peace on earth, and good will to men ; ' ' but I like the 



THE FESTIVAL. 83 

old Latin translation better, " Peace on earth toward good-willing 
men." You say that Ave have been willing, if necessary, to fight : 
well, Mr. Chairman, we should have been recreant to the simplest 
calls of duty if we had not. You cannot forget how the old Puritan 
ministers — how our forefathers of Revolutionary memory in the 
gospel, took their swords and their muskets, and fought side by 
side with their people, the honest yeomanry of the land, and gave 
to us the heritage of freedom, and the privilege to worship God 
according to the dictates of our own consciences. We ought, there- 
fore, to have been willing, so far as God gave us the power, to do 
all this. Then, there is another reason why we have been willing to 
do all this — the ministers of the country are human, you remember, 
and they got their spirit up as the rest of the community did. I 
imagine that they felt something like the old Islander who was 
drafted into a regiment, and brought upon the battle-field. As the 
conflict opened, he was noticed to be gaping around unconcernedly, 
with his musket on his shoulder. Presently his officer came along 
and asked him why he didn't blaze away — why he didn't load 
and fire at the enemy. '' Why should I fire at them ? " says he ; 
" what harm have they done to me ? " But presently, as he 
stood there, his companion fell dead — then another, and another. 
" Faith," says he, "I believe those fellows are firing bullets ! " 
" Of course, they are," said the officer ; " and if you don't begin 
to fire back they will have you in a minute." Thereupon he girded 
himself for the conflict, and fought like a tiger all through the 
conffict. So we got our spirit up. When w^e found that these 
foes of ours, that we had no idea were going to fight us, really 
meant to fight, we girded ourselves for the fight, and did the best 
w^e could ; and if we had not done it, we should not have been true 
to ourselves. 

There is another reason — we could not help it. It was with 
us, as it was with that old Methodist clergyman, who converted a 
certain blacksmith. The blacksmith was a cursing and wicked old 
man, who hated Methodists and Methodism, who swore that the next 
time a Methodist minister came by his shopj he would give him 
a thrashing. His shop stood in a narrow place, where any per- 
son who went along that way would have to pass it. Well, this 
old minister, in traveling from one part of his circuit to another, 



84 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

had to pass that way. He had heard of the threat of the black- 
smith, but he kept right on his way. When he reached the shop, 
lo, and behold, out came Mr. Blacksmith, intent on keeping his 
word, and said to the minister : " I promised to give you a thrash- 
ing if ever you came by my shop, and now I am going to keep my 
word." " Very well; but let's have it all fair," said the minister. 
And he got offliis horse, took off his coat, and threw it on the 
ground, saying, as he did so, '-'-Now, you lie there, Mr. Minister, 
until the conflict is over." Then the good old Methodist squared 
himself for the fight, and very shortly Mr. Blacksmith went down. 
Then the minister began to belabor him, and the blacksmith very 
soon began to beg to be let up. "No," said the minister; "you 
must pray first ! " and he began to say over the Lord's Prayer to 
him, and with every word came a blow. " Now say it : Our," then 
came a blow, " Father," then another blow ; and so on, through. 
After he had finished the prayer, in this manner, the minister said : 
" Now, you must promise me, that henceforth you will be a Chris- 
tian." At first, the blacksmith demurred to this ; but after a few 
more blows he consented, and made the promise ; and ever after 
was a good Christian man — converted under that kind of preaching. 
Now, we have converted the people of the South in the same way, 
and I beHeve we have done it just as effectually ; for I believe you 
will find them now the most genuine converts to freedom in the 
whole land. 

Then, again, there is another reason why the preachers of the 
gospel of peace should have done as they have : How could they 
help it, when they were going around ministering to the mourning, 
and the afflicted, and the bereaved ; and seeing their tears, and 
listening to the stories of their sorrows, having their sympathies 
called out — how could they help doing their part in the work ? It 
was sympathy that drew us in. We could not shrink from it. We 
should have been ashamed to stand up before our brethren, if we 
had not done our part. 

But there is yet another reason why we have had something to 
do in the great conflict : that is, that there were such great, noble 
principles involved in it. We had to take part in it, because if we 
did not, the community would leave us behind. They were getting 
the start of us. They were really taking the very texts out of our 



THE FESTIVAL. 85 

Bibles ; and if the ministers had not awoke to the work, they would 
have been behind the people. These great principles had got hold 
of the people in advance, and we had to follow them. 

Then again there was something greater than liberty or human- 
ity in all this. God is in it. " Not for your sakes do I this, but 
for my sake." God is in it. As we have been told to-night that 
there are new things constantly being revealed in physical science — 
that it is just in its infancy ; so in this moral science, we are just 
in our alphabet, and God has things to reveal to us in moral 
science higher than any thing we know. And now, my friends, 
because God is in these things, and the nation recognizes that he is, 
we have wTitten it upon the nation's capitol: "It is the Lord's 
doings, and it is marvelous in our eyes." Now because we recog- 
nize this, in closing our brief and desultory remarks, in the place of 
the ordinary cheers, which accompany the completion of a little 
speech of this kind, I want to ask this assembly to unite with me 
in singing those words which have been so often sung during this 
conflict: ''Praise God from whom all blesshags flow," etc. [The 
audience rose and joined in the singing.] 

The President.— The Kev. Mr. Moore is here. We ousht to 
hear from him. 



o 



A Voice. — [Mr. Moore not being present to respond.] No 

More. 

[Calls for Mr. Brodt.] 

Rev. Mr. Brodt. — We have here a Captain, who is also a Cler- 
gyman — Capt. Bissell. 

The President. — It is very evident that in calling up one we 
have Brodt out two. 

Mr. Brodt. — I think Captain Bissell should give us a few 
words on this text. Though I have practiced a little in preaching 
upon it, I feel that the sort of preaching that has been developed 
in the last four years, has brought out that gospel in a new phase, 
that could not be found in the old dispensation, a phase that came 
home to my heart and harmonized to a certain extent those natural 



86 ASSOCIATED ALUMXI OF THE PACIEIC COAST. 

feelings which I beheve enter into the groundwork of that gospel, 
which was organized not to exterminate any of those feelings, but 
to direct them. But while the ministers of this coast have not had 
an opportunity to show forth their patriotism in so practical a way 
as our brethren on the other side, and I feel that one who has 
already aided the practical carrying out of the great principles 
involved, certainly ought to be able to say something to-night that 
would stir our own hearts, and make us feel more satisfied with our 
nation, which has been so far hindered from its fall completion, 
therefore, I would call on Capt. Bissell. He has been a Captain, 
one who fought in the army, as well as a preacher of the gospel. 

Capt. Bissell. — I have my own theory with regard to the war, 
and it does not diifer very much, I presume, from the theory of 
those who have spoken before me. I have been wont to think that, 
as we are in a mixed state in this world, we have often to choose 
between evils ; and it is our duty, in that case, to choose the lesser 
evil. TThen this war broke out, it seemed to me that it was 
the duty of the Xorth to fight, because the South had taken the 
sword, and would overrun the Xorth — would put it down, and break 
up the Union. And war would be a less evil than that. This 
Union would be worth, if it could be preserved, all that it would 
cost. Therefore I advocated war. When the war commenced, 
being located in a town which was somewhat sparsely settled, and 
the vounp: men not being forthcomins; to enter the armv, and not 
beino- wilhno; that there should be a draft. I set mvself to work, 
and the number allotted to that town was secui-ed. "We went ofi" 
with Gen. Banks, and were in the campaign in which Port Hudson 
was captured. I am always glad, I have been glad ever since the 
day I started, that I went into the army — glad, as a minister of 
Christ, that I have had that valuable experience. I learned more 
in the army about myself, about human nature, about God, and 
about the country, than I ever learned any where else. I learned 
more then how to preach than I ever learned in a theological 
seminary. And I have seen a Christianity in the army such as I 
never saw developed any where else, under any circumstances. 
Let me give you an incident that came under my own observation, 
illustrating this point. After the battle of the fouiteenth of June — 



THE FESTIVAL. 87 

the assault on Port Hudson — in which we were driven off, many of 
our wounded and dead lay on the field from Sunday morning until 
Thursday. The second day I was lying under a log, in the advance, 
holding, as officer of the picket-guard, a part of the ground we 
had taken. About nine or ten o'clock in the morning, perhaps a 
little earlier than that, we began to hear cries all over the field for 
water. Here and there were wounded soldiers lying within a few 
rods of us, but we could not get nearer to them, on account of the 
fire that was constantly kept up by the enemy. It was awful to 
hear those cries, I assure you ; but we were not in circumstances 
to give them any rehef. One wounded man lay perhaps within six 
rods of me, and he was continually calling upon his captain, and 
upon members of his company, to give him water, or to come and 
kill him. While he was lying there crying in that manner, and I 
was lying under that log, the bullets striking on both sides of it, I 
heard a voice call : " Halloo, you man that are crying for water !" 
The poor fellow did not at first hear, and kept up his cries. Soon 
there came the shout, " Halloo ! " again. Then the man stopped 
crying, and the person shouted, " I have brought water for you ; 
look out for this canteen !" Then I heard the canteen fall ; heard 
the water splash, as it struck the ground ; and then another, and 
another canteen followed. And that water stopped the distressed 
cries, and may be saved the fife of that wounded man. The man 
who brought it had crept upon the field at the greatest danger to 
his life, was not a soldier, was an agent of the Christian Commission ; 
and had, at the greatest peril to himself, crept up as nearly as he 
could to the man who was dying with thirst, and had thrown him 
this water. [Applause.] Now it seems to me, my friends, that 
that is the highest style of Christianity, that this war has developed 
that style of Christianity, and the more we have of it the better. 

When you called upon me to make a speech, I bethought me of 
a classmate of mine, of whom you will allow me to speak. He 
was a very remarkable man in some respects. He was called " the 
man with the stick;" and it happened in this wise. When he 
came to college he brought with him, in his pocket, a stick, about 
three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and six inches long, whittled 
round, and blackened by handling. This stick he always carried 
with him. And when he appeared before the reverend professors 



bo ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OP THE PACIFIC COAST. 

for examination to enter college, and found himself stumbling 
amongst the Greek roots, he pulled out his stick and began to shake 
it, and, strange to say, his confidence and his Greek came back to 
him at the same time. He kept that stick through the college 
course. If he lost it, he was sick. In the recitation-room it 
helped him out of many a tight place ; in the debating-club it 
helped him to many a good speech ; and I have no doubt he took 
it to the dinner-table, to help him to digest the tough beef of the 
" commons." How he came by that stick — whether he was born 
with it, or it came to him afterwards, like the habit of sucking the 
thumbs, I can't tell ; but certain it is, that it was a necessity of its 
owner's existence ; and it is a wonderful phenomenon to which I 
call your attention. [Laughter.] This story has a moral. I have 
often wished that I possessed some such magic taUsman to help me 
out of difiiculties. I have felt my need of it in the midst of knotty 
theological questions, when I have met impracticable men whom I 
did not know how to dispose of. But never, never, gentlemen, did 
I feel my need of that stick more than when called upon to make 
a speech on this occasion. 

The President. — If our friend had made his wants known, 
we would have contrived to send him something with a stick in it. 
[Great laughter.] 

I don't know that this subject of the clergy is exhausted yet. 
I notice another long-faced doctor here — I don't know whether he 
is a minister or not. Perhaps he will favor us with something. 

Dr. Henry Gibbons. — Am I the individual you refer to ? 

The President. — The very man — nobody else. 

Dr. Gibbons. — Beloved Brethren and Sisters : It is nothing 
new to me to be taken for a clergyman. From my youth up there 
has been something sanctimonious in my appearance that has led 
me to be considered very spiritual [laughter] ; and scores of times 
I have been called upon to christen young children. [Shouts of 
laughter.] I always, however, regarded that as a sort of oblique 
reflection upon my physic. [Renewed laughter.] And on several 
occasions, many years ago, when I was quite a youth, I was called 



THE FESTIVAL. 89 

upon to marry people. It strikes me I did marry a woman once. 
[Great applause and laughter.] 

I was very much struck this evening by a text suggested by one 
of the gentlemen who spoke in the early part of the evening. If I 
were going to preach a sermon — I am not though, because the 
lateness of the hour admonishes me to be brief — if I were going to 
preach a sermon, I would take for a text that suggested by the 
first gentleman, I think, who occupied the floor, in referring to the 
prayer of the negro, about the differences between people as the 
source of blessing. Now, I think that that subject has not been 
quite sufficiently developed. [Cheers and laughter.] The truth 
is, that the enjoyment that we derive from association with each 
other, depends very much upon those differences. Was there ever 
in California a more heterogeneous mass of people than are here 
assembled to-night ? You can scarcely find two men who have 
just the same ideas — no two men who think alike — simply because 
they are thinking people. Men who think at all, don't think like 
anybody else. It is the unthinking people, if you can pardon the 
solecism, who think ahke. There is a very important lesson to be 
derived in studying the advantage that grows out of different or 
opposite habits, inclinations, propensities, etc. An illustration of 
this point occurs in an important old book that I used to read when 
a boy — the authorship of which is imputed to a certain Mother 
Goose. Referring to an indi vidua;! of the Sprat family — John or 
Jack Sprat and his wife — it is said that 

" Jack Sprat 
Would eat no fat, 

His wife would eat no lean ; 
So, 'twixt them both, 
They cleared the cloth. 

And licked the platter clean," 

I always regarded that as a very deep illustration of human 
nature. Now, if that couple had had the same appetite, they would 
have had a quarrel over the meat, or else one part of it would have 
been wasted. If they had agreed not to quarrel about it, either 
the fat or the lean would have been lost. And so it is, my friends, 
throughout all the intercourse of society. On these principles, I 
was not displeased to-day with the heresies uttered by the reverend 



90 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

gentleman who made the address ; nor by the more numerous here- 
sies of the joung gentleman who read the poem — which was one of 
the most beautiful productions that I ever listened to. [Applause.] 
Now, there were a good many things said by both of those gentle- 
men that I do not assent to ; but at the same time I hked them. 
I have a sort of relish for heresies. 

A Voice. — There is no doubt about that. [Great applause 
and laughter.] 

Dr. Gibbons. — That's so, if you allow the definition some lati- 
tude, and apply it to everything that I don't believe in myself. 
There is a certain spiciness about a man's sermon or speech, or 
what not, — a certain spiciness that makes it agreeable, when there 
is something in it that you don't believe. It is like the solid spice 
in pickled oysters. You get it into your mouth, and just press it 
softly between your teeth and get the flavor of it, and then you 
spit it out — I mean the spice, and not the oyster. [Laughter.] 
Just so it is with these heresies that you sometimes hear in a good 
discourse or good poem. You need not swallow them. They give 
a flavor to the oyster of truth ; and after getting the flavor, you 
can just spit them out. It is too much to swallow all of them. 

There is something in the American mind that is very practical, 
and it is well that there are those who will advocate the practical 
to the exclusion of everything else, while others defend the theoreti- 
cal. It is very well that there should be representatives of all 
classes of opinions. It brightens life, it infuses vigor into society, 
and gives enjoyment when you meet together. The great art of 
social enjoyment is being developed, and has been developed in late 
days, through the toleration manifested by men for opposing senti- 
ments. A few centuries ago, such a convocation as this would by 
this time have been in a grand quarrel about their differences of 
opinion ; and we should hardly have got out of this room without 
some physical interference with our comfort, some of us. But now 
all these very diversities become sources of enjoyment and happi- 
ness. There is great multiphcity of powers, faculties, sensibihties ; 
and the greater the number you bring into harmonious play, the 
greater amount of happiness you will enjoy. It is well, therefore, 
that all opinions should be represented. 



THE FESTIVAL. 91 

I was very much pleased at an incident I read in a newspaper 
the other day. In a certain school district down East, a school- 
master just installed found the boys rather uproarious, and under- 
took to quell them by strategy. Mounting the platform and taking 
a position for them to imitate, he cried out, " Boys, I think we can 
get along with less noise. Suppose we try." The boys quieted 
down very much, but there was still some noise. " Very good, so 
far," said he. " I think we can do even better than that. Let 
us see if we can't get so still as to hear a pin drop !" Then the 
room became perfectly quiet, and when it had so continued a while, 
some little fellow in the back part of the room who did not appre- 
ciate abstractions nor poetry, — some little Newton or Franklin 
who was bent on carrying out the experiment, — shouts : " Now let 
her drop !" [Laughter.] 

But I must not prolong this course of remark. There is a wide 
field in the subject for instructive elaboration, and I really believe 
I could preach a sermon an hour long on the advantages of differ- 
ences and opposition, of negatives and positives in life. Look at 
the developments of chemistry, as just now detailed by Professor 
Jackson. See the heterogeneous elements of matter, each having 
its distinct properties — its own polarities, its attractions and repul- 
sions. All the beauties and changes of nature grow out of these 
diversified relations. We have similar differences in our own natures, 
from which may flow, if we choose, a fountain of happiness. 

Before taking my seat, let me refer to a marvelous change that 
has taken place in our feelings since we met here one year ago. 
We had then a glorious little company, — not so large as this, it is 
true, — a rich feast of intellect, and plenty to eat and drink. We 
had a high old time generally, if you can have a high time on tea, 
and coffee, and cold water. There was nothing on our table, and 
there is nothing now, to interfere with the mens sana in corpore 
sanOy without which there can be no true and rational enjoyment. 
We have practised the true philosophy of fife, to sacrifice neither 
the present for the future, nor the future for the present, but to 
enjoy the present in such manner as to secure the enjoyment of the 
future. But happy as we were a year ago, a cloud hung upon our 
hearts. The land was overshadowed with gloom, and the future 
was veiled in darkness. Men of faith, however, saw in the dark 



92 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

future a ray of light reflected from the past — they saw the hand of 
a wise Providence shaping the nation's destiny, and they beheved 
that a Avay would be opened for deliverance and salvation. But 
then we did not know that we had a country — we felt no security. 
Now we know it — now we feel it. [Applause.] And we feel 
more — we feel not only that we have a home and a country, but 
one to be proud of — the most glorious country the sun shines on. 
And oh, how our feelings must have changed, not only as to our- 
selves, but in regard to posterity — our children and our childrens' 
children — for after all, it is for them that we live and labor. How 
should we fathers, parents, — how should we have gone down to the 
grave with the uncertainty before us in regard to our children, 
whether they should be possessed of a country or not ? But that, 
thank God ! is all removed. That glorious flag ! did it ever look 
so bright before ? Do you not feel, every one of you, my friends, 
from each bright star on that flag, a warm glow as of sunshme, 
penetrating your hearts ? [Applause.] Don't you feel that those 
stripes cannot again bring to mind the taunt of the British poet, 
comparing them with the marks upon human backs ? Oh, it is now 
a glorious flag, washed clean, in human blood, from the great moral 
stain that had disgraced it in the eyes of the world ; destined to 
bear with it wherever it goes, freedom, unqualified freedom, uni- 
versal liberty, to every human being on the face of the earth. 
[Applause.] 

The President. — I am very sorry to say that there is but fif- 
teen minutes left — fifteen minutes more to stay here^ and fifteen 
minutes after that to get to the cars. So we have got to do quickly 
what there is to do, and there are two sentiments which we cannot 
pass by : 

The Press — The World's Great Regulator. — Chained only when it is feared, 
and feared only when conscience makes cowards of the instruments of tyramiy and 
wrong ! 

Mr. H. B. Livingston will respond. 

Mr. Livingston. — Mr. President, Ladies, and G-entlemen: 
Brevity is the soul of wit. " The Press — the world's great reg- 
ulator." There my friend, as usual, comes to the point at once. 
It is the world's great regulator. It ivill regulate the world. It 



THE FESTIVAL. 93 

is only a question of time ; but I fear the time has not elapsed yet. 
As a member of the " press," I have done what I could to per- 
form my part towards " regulating" this portion of God's universe, 
where I have been for the last sixteen years. It has been a task 
of vastly more difficulty than one would suppose, who is elsewhere 
connected with the press. The pioneer press of this State has en- 
countered vicissitudes and changes of no ordinary character. Some 
of those have been pleasant, — others serious, and some exceedingly 
destructive. The pioneer press was started over eighteen years 
ago, before the State was admitted into the Union. Since then, it 
has grown and extended from the plains of San Diego to the 
mountains of Shasta. Its influence, I think, has been on the 
whole beneficial. A great many interesting and amusing incidents 
have come under my notice, and been given to the world, through 
the press, since I have been connected with it. One of them — now 
that the ladies have been mentioned — I will relate. One of the 
very first paragraphs that I had to indite on this coast, was a notice 
of a marriage which I saw celebrated in Sacramento, under the 
boughs of an evergreen oak, in the immediate vicinity of Sutter's 
Fort. 

It was a pleasant feature of the labors of the pioneer editor, 
that he could impart information to the people of the East. And 
then we had not to draw upon our imagination quite so heavily for 
our facts and items ; and the scenery of our State is so grand that 
we can make the most extravagant and wonderful descriptions, 
that, are true. I shall never forget the splendor I witnessed on a 
beautiful moonlight night, in June, 1850, when standing on the sum- 
mit of the Salmon mountains, 7,000 miles above the level of the 
sea. [Here shouts of laughter, again and again renewed, inter- 
rupted the speaker for several minutes.] Gentlemen, I will stick 
to it — it was higher than that. Any man who could have seen 
what I saw that night, would say that he was nearer heaven — unless 
he was a remarkably good man — than he had any reasonable pros- 
pect of being again. The panorama partook of the sublime and 
picturesque, and was in fact enchanting ; which I do say induced 
me to beheve the mountain was 7,000 miles high. [Laughter.] 
But time wanes, and to the ladies' champion I cordially give way. 



94 ASSOCIATED ALTJMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST, 

The President. — We have all learned now how much Mr. 
Livingston knows about matrimony. 
There is but one more sentiment : 

The Ladies. — "What can we do with them ? — what could we do without them ? 

And there is but one man to respond to that, and you all know 
who he is. [Calls for Benton.] Yes, Benton is the man — the 
Rev. J. E. Benton. 

Mr. Be:n^ton. — Allow me to congi-atulate you, sir, for having 
once found the fitness of things. [Laughter.] You have the right 
man in the right place, and at the right time, and with the right 
length to his tether. [Laughter.] 

JSTow, sir, I don't suppose there is a woman so forsaken in this 
world as ever to take a fancy to any such sort of man as myself; 
therefore I am called upon to speak of woman's virtues. But the 
greatest part of the fitness is, for once, I am going to tell the truth. 
You recollect the gentleman that was called upon to know if he 
would accept the office of Governor ; and who said he thought he 
would, and what was more, he thought he was peculiarly quahfied 
to fill the office, because he had been Lieutenant-Governor at home. 
Like him, I have been a sort of Lieutenant-Governor at home. 
You have chosen the best henpecked man in this house to respond 
to this toast. [Laughter.] Why, gentlemen, you needn't laugh ; 
the only difference between me and you is this : that I am honest 
enough to own it, and you won't ; and I am honest enough to glory 
in it, and you are ashamed of it. 

You ask what we would do without the ladies. You recollect, 
Mr. President, last year you hadn't the grace to ask any of them 
to come in here. I suppose that was because the Trustees felt that 
we were not worthy of so great a boon. But what did we do 
without them then ? They came in here and prepared our supper 
for us, and waited upon us ; and then they took back-seats around 
the wall, back in the cold, and we all felt that we were out of our 
places — every one of us. This year you did not invite them, either ; 
but they came in and ministered to us, and then they came and 
took their places where they ought to be — right with us. And 
now they do rule over us : they ought to. Ask me what I would 



THE FESTIVAL. 95 

do without them ! Why, it would be like taking that kind of bath 
that Sidney Smith said that he was in the habit of taking — taking 
off his flesh and sitting ui his bones. When you ask me what I would 
do without woman, I haven't a word to say. What we want to do is, to 
come into subjection to her. You recollect that Wendell Philhps said, 
the other day, that he was not bold enough to add the word " sex " 
to color, as the hmit of the right of franchise. Now, I am bolder 
than Wendell Phillips. I say that we ought to make this subjection 
of ourselves, and put them over us ; and, as General Wilson sug- 
gested, next year they are to have the head of the table. Our 
souls are marching on ; and, by and by, we shall all acknowledge 
the truth that we can't do without women, and we beg them to 
take us, and put us in the right places, and take charge of things 
themselves. I am glad that you all take this seriously ; and I 
know your hearts respond to it. [Laughter.] And one thing I 
am satisfied of — that the truth of our thorough subjection is ac- 
cepted in silence as the most solemn and blessed fact of our exist- 
ence. 

Gentlemen — I am done. I think it is about time to go to the 
boat. 

The President. — Two minutes yet to spare. I am very sorry 
that the evening was not long enough for the good speeches that 
were here. We have had as good as I ever heard, and there are 
at least a dozen better ones that have not been delivered. I hope 
they will keep until the next year. And noAv, on behalf of the 
Association, I thank you all for your presence here, and for the 
cordiaUty with which you have responded to us ; and we bid you 
an affectionate good-night. 



OBITUARY RECORD. 



I. 

The Rev. L. C. Batles died in San Francisco, August 15, 1864. 

He was a graduate of the New York Free Academy, and of Princeton Theo- 
logical Seminary. 

He had educated himself for missionary work among the heathen ; but berag 
compelled to relinquish this service, he became Pastor of a Presbyterian Church in 
the upper part of Xew York City. The church prospered exceedingly under his 
ministry. His health failing, he came to this coast in 1863, and was soon induced 
to become acting-Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. For 
a while he enjoyed recuperated strength, and wrought abundantly in his work. 
His ministrations were most acceptable. A recurrence of hemorrhage of the lungs 
compelled a change, and he visited the Sandwich Islands. Returning thence he 
was encouraged to resume his labors, but after a short experiment desisted from 
the attempt, and calmly resigned himself to death. He died young, but widely 
lamented. He had won the peculiar love of two congregations, and in wide minis- 
terial and hterary circles his genial nature and earnest Christian character had 
secured, in a remarkable degree, the affection of his associates. 

At the time of his decease he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the 
College of California. 

II. 

Wm. p. Blakeslee died in Xewbern, North Carolina, October 13, 1864. 

He was born near Cleveland, Ohio, in 1838. In 1857 he entered Western 
Reserve College, where he graduated in 1861. He came at once to Cahfornia, and 
employed his time in teaching, and in the study of law. He was admitted to the 
Bar at the March Term of the Supreme Court, in 1864. Returning, according to 
his plan, to the Eastern States, he expected to practice law in Ohio ; but receiving 
an appointment as Clerk in the Treasury Department, at JSTewbern, he went thither 
in August, 1864. His father, formerly a prominent lawyer in Ohio, had for several 
years held a high position in the United States Treasury Department, and was 



THE FESTIVAL. 97 

stationed in Newbern. Wm. P. Blakeslee had been there but six weeks when he 
was attacked by the yellow fever, from which he did not recover. His age was 
twenty-six. 

Those who knew him well regarded him as a young man of more than ordinary 
promise. For eight years he had been a consistent member of a Congregational 
Church. 

III. 

Colonel John Kellogg, a graduate of West Point, died April 25, 1865, at City 
Point, Virginia. 

A recent notice in the Bulletin says : Col. Kellogg served long and efficiently 
in this Military Department, where, from November, 1861, to June, 1864, he acted 
as Commissary of Subsistence of the Army on this coast. He left here in June, 
1864, for Washington, and on the twelfth of August following was appointed Lieu- 
tenant Colonel and assigned charge of the subsistence affairs of the Middle Military 
Division in Virginia. He died after an illness of eleven days, of typhoid fever and 
pneumonia, brought on by excessive and continued exposure while with Sheridan in 
the last campaign — a very severe one. 



LIST OF GRADUATES 



SEE PREFACE. 



Name. Residence. Occupation. College. Tear. 

John E. Abbott Benicia Lawyer Dartmouth 1858 

Benj. Ackerly Oakland *. Clergyman 

EoBT. E. Adams Crescent City Williams 1858 

Jas. M. Alexander San Leandro Clergyman Williams 1858 

Gen. L. H. Allen San Francisco U. S. A West Point 1838 

John Allyn Oakland Lane Theo. Sem .1848 

Maj. Geo. P. Andrews . Angel Island U. S. A West Point 

L. Archer San Jose Lawyer University Va 

Henry R. Avery Pacheco Clergyman Coll. of N. J 1853 

Washington Ayer, M.D.San Francisco Physician Harvard Med 

W. O. Ayres, M.D San Francisco Prof. Toland Med. 

College Yale 1837 

Lt.-Col. E. B. Babbitt.. San Francisco U. S. A West Point 

J. S. Bacon San Francisco Merchant Yale 1845 

Jas. Bailey Sacramento Hamilton 

A. L. Baker Oakland Clergyman Univ. Rochester .1861 

A. S. Baldwin, M.D San Francisco Physician West. Res. Med 

Hon. Alex. W. Baldwin Virginia City, Nev. U S. Dist. Court. Univ. Va 1858 

D.M.Baldwin, M.D...- Columbia Physician Dartmouth 1845 

Lloyd Baldwin San Francisco Lawyer Union 1860 

E. Bannister, D.D Santa Clara Pres't Univ. Pac Wesl. Univ 1838 

W. H. L. Barnes. San Fi-ancisco Lawyer Coll. of Cal.,M.A.1365 

Hon. Geo. Barstow San Francisco Lawyer 

Wm. Barstow, M.D Idaho Physician Dartmouth ......1842 

E. P. Batchelor San Francisco Lawyer Yale 1858 

AsHER B. Bates San Francisco Lawyer Union 1828 

Geo. Bates San Francisco Teacher Cambridge 

Jos. C. Bates Redwood City Lawyer .Bowdoin 1863 

E. G. Beckwith San Francisco Clergyman Williams 1849 

Lyman Beecher Santa Cruz Williams 1857 

H. Behr, M.D San Francisco Physician 

Hon. I. S. Belcher Marysville Lawyer Univ. Vt 1846 

Wm. C. Belcher Marysville Lawyer Univ. Vt 1843 

D. P. Belknap San Francisco Lawyer Univ. N. Y. City. 1844 

Belville, M.D Physician 

H. C. Benson, D.D Portland, Or Editor Asbury Univ 1842 

Jos. A. Benton San Francisco Clergyman Yale 1842 



LIST OF GRADUATES. 92. 

Name. Residence. Occupation. College. Year. 

Hon. John E. Benton. .-Folsom Clergyman Univ. N. Y. City. 1847 

Hon. John Bidwell....CMco M. C Coll.of Cal., M.A.1865 

Saml. C. Bigelow San Francisco Merchant Williams 1845 

T. B. Bigelow Oakland Merchant Harvard 1820 

Fred. Billings San Francisco Lawyer Univ., Vt 1844 

W. I. BiNNEY San Francisco Amherst 1860 

Edwin C. Bissell San Francisco Clerg-yman Amherst 1855 

Chas. T. Blake Idaho City, I. T... Banker Yale 1847 

Hon. M. C. Blake San Francisco Lawyer Bowdoin .... 1838 

Eev. S. V. Blakeslee. ..Oakland Editor Western Reserve. 1844 

N. W. Blanchard Dutch Flat Miner Waterville 1854 

J. S. Blatchley San Francisco Lawyer Yale 1850 

Wm. D. Bliss Petaluma Lawyer Harvard 

H. T. BooRAEM San Francisco Lawyer 

Hon. Newton Booth . ..Sacramento Merchant Asbury Univ 

S, D. BoswoRTH Grass Valley Miner Union 1851 

Maj. A. W. Bowman San Francisco . ....U. S. A West Point 

J, F. Bowman San Francisco Lawyer Univ. N. Y. City. 1844 

C. W. Bradbury Virginia Clergyman Waterville . . . 1834 

Prof. J. H. Braley Mountain View Teacher . Cumberland Univ 

Chas. E. Brayton Oakland Hamilton 1852 

I. H. Brayton Oakland Prof. Coll. of Cal. Hamilton 1846 

Henry L. Breed San Francisco .Broker Yale 1859 

John H. Brewer Oakland Lawyer Yale 1850 

W. W. Brier Alvarado. Clergyman Wabash ] 846 

M. C. Briggs, D.D Sacramento Clergyman 

O. W. Briggs San Francisco Clergyman ..... .Brown University . . . 

John H. Brodt San Francisco Clergyman Reus. Inst 1844 

J. H. Brooking San Jose Teacher Univ. Rochester. .1864 

Hon. C. M. Brosman Virginia City, Nev 

J. Newton Brown, MD. San Francisco Prof. Toland Med. 

College Miami Univ 

P. Gr. Buchanan Watson ville Clergyman Univ. Mich 1846 

Thos. B. Buck Big Oak Flat Waterville 1851 

J. M. BuEHLER San Francisco Clergyman .• 

Rev. Fred. Buel San Francisco Agt.Am.Bible Soc.Yale 1836 

Milton Bulkley San Francisco Yale 1861 

Hon. Caleb Burbank... Virginia City, Nev. Lawyer Waterville 1829 

C. E. Burr, M.D Oakland Physician Univ. N. Y. City. 1840 

Geo. Burro WES, D.D ... San Francisco Pres't Univ. Coll. Coll, N. J 

J. P. Bush, M.D San Francisco Physician 

S. F. BuTTERwoRTH New Almaden Union 

Philip S. Caffrey Portland, Or Clergyman Coll. N. J 1854 

Alex. Campbell San Francisco Lawyer 

Maj. John Caperton Oakland Lawyer Univ. Va 

Wm. Carman, M.D San Francisco Physician Yale 1842 

Dyer A. Carpenter San Francisco Law Student Roch. Univ 1864 

H. W. Carpentier Oakland Lawyer Columbia 1848 

Henry Carver Oakland Teacher Madison Univ. and 

Williams, M. A 

Eugene Casserly San Francisco Lawyer 

Hon. J. M. Cavis Columbia Lawyer Dartmouth 1846 

Geo. C. Chandler, D.D. McMinnville, Or. .. Clergyman Brown University 



100 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

Name. Residence. Occupation. College. Year. 

Albert Chase, M.D Austin, Nev Physician Dartmouth 1844 

Dudley Chase Petaluma Clergyman 

Geo. C. Chase, M.D Downieville Physician Dartmouth 1841 

Marshall S. Chase Waterville 1840 

D. B. Cheney, D.D San Francisco Clergyman Dennison Univ., 

M.A 1848 

Perry Gr. Childs Virginia City, Nev. Miner Wesl. Univ 1846 

J. W. Clark, M.D San Francisco Merchant Yale Med 1837 

Orange Clark, D.D San Francisco Clergyman 

S. J. Clark Oakland Lawyer Trinity 1845 

Rev. Chas. E. Clarke . . San Francisco Teacher Coll. N. J 1853 

J. J. Cleveland Humboldt County. -Clergyman Wesl. Univ 1849 

J. C. Cobb, M.D San Jose Physician Eens. Inst 1831 

E. Cohn, D.D San Francisco Clergyman 

B. B. CoiT, M.D San Francisco Physician Yale 1822 

Hon. Cornelius Cole .-Santa Cruz M. C Wesl. Univ 1847 

John A. Collins Virginia City, Nev. Lawyer 

A. CoMTE, Jr Sacramento Lawyer Harvard 1863 

Hon. H. P. Coon, M.D... San Francisco Mayor S. F WiUiams 1844 

Bernard Cornelius Oswego, Or Teacher Univ. Dublin 

S. Cornelius, Jr Salem, Or Clergyman Columbia 

A. J. Cory, M.D San Jose Physician Miami Univ 

Benj. Cory, M.D San Jose Physician Miami Univ 

J. Manning Cory San Jose Miami Univ 

Saml. F. CowES, M.D. .-San Francisco U. S.N Harvard 1845 

J. D. Creigh San Francisco Lawyer Dickinson 

Hon. E. B. Crocker Sacramento Lawyer Eens. Institute .-. 1833 

Col. J. B. Crockett San Francisco Lawyer Univ. Tenn 1828 

B. S. Crosby Autioch Clergyman Oberliu 1857 

Danl. a. Crosby San Francisco Lawyer Dartmouth 1857 

B. W. Crowell Austin, Nev Miner Eutgers 

Wm. L. Crowell San Francisco Merchant Bowdoin 

Eev. W. N. Cunningham. Sonoma Teacher Cumberland Univ 

Hon. John Curry San Francisco Supreme Court 

S. L. Cutter, Jr San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1854 

Jas. a. Daly. - San Francisco Coll. of Cal 1864 

Horace Davis San Francisco Merchant 

Hon. Sherman Day Oakland -Mining Engineer. Yale 1826 

Fred. A. Dean Bowdoin 

Alvah B. Dearborn . -.Sau Francisco Bowdoin 1863 

Alex. Deering Mariposa Lawyer 

Jas. H. Deering San Francisco Merchant Bowdoin 1845 

Col. Eene E. DeEussey. San Francisco U. S. A West Point 1812 

Isaac Dillon Salem, Or Clergyman Dickinson 

Henry Dobbins lone City Clergyman Western Univ 

Henry L. Dodge San Francisco Merchant Univ. Vt 1846 

Z. B. Donaldson Folsom Pacific Meth - 

Thos. Douglass San Jose Farmer Yale 1831 

John T. Doyle San Francisco Lawyer 

J. W. Drew San Francisco U. S. A Dartmouth 1844 

A. N. Drown San Francisco Brown Univ 1861 

Gen. E. C. Drum San Francisco U. S. A 

T. S. Dunn Virginia City, Nev. Clergyman 



LIST OF GRADUATES. 101 

Name. Residence. Occupation. College. Year. 

Henry Durant Oakland Prof. Coll. of Cal. Yale 1827 

I. E. DwiNELL,D.D Sacramento Clergyman Univ. Vt 1843 

John W. Dwinelle Oakland Lawyer Hamilton 1834 

G. A. Easton San Francisco Clergyman Trinity 

Aug. E. Ebgert, M.D. .. . Arizona U. S. A CoU. N. J 1850 

Stukely Ellsworth ...Eugene City, Or. ..Lawyer Yale 1847 

D. L. Emerson Oakland ..'. Coll. of Cal 1864 

F. A. Fabens San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1835 

Alex. Fairbairn Bloomfield Clergyman Lafayette 1848 

Wm. H. Farnham Bowdoin 

John B. Felton San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1847 

Hon. S. J. Field San Francisco U. S. Sup. Court.- Williams 

Fisher Coloma Clergyman Genessee 

Capt. H. B. Fleming San Francisco U. S. A West Point 1852 

Rev. O. S. Frambes Portland, Or Teacher Ohio Wesl. Univ 

Thos. Eraser Santa Rosa Clergyman Union 1842 

Walter Frear Santa Cruz Clergyman Yale : . .1851 

T. W. Freelon San Francisco Lawyer Dartmouth 1843 

C. G. W. French. Folsom Lawyer Brown 1842 

Wm. R. Frisbie San Jose Merchant Yale 1858 

Maj. Cary Fry San Francisco U. S. A West Point 

R. M. Gallaway San Francisco Merchant Yale 1858 

Jas. E. Galloway San Francisco Miami Univ 

Philip G. Galpin San Francisco Lawyer Yale 1849 

Alex. Gamble San Francisco . ... .Merchant WatervUIe 1847 

John Gamble Big Oak Flat Waterville 1851 

S. Garcelon, M.D Oakland 

J. H. Gassman Stockton Clergyman 

T. M. Gatch Salem, Or Pres't Willamette 

Univ Ohio Wesl. Univ 

Hi RAM L. Ge AR Downieville Lawyer Marietta 1863 

Edward R. Geary Albany, Or Clergyman 

J. F"'. Geary, M.D San Francisco Physician Lond. Univ 1842 

A. W. Genung San Francisco Custom House . . . Wesl. Univ 1846 

E. Gibbons, M.D Oakland Physician .' 

H. Gibbons, M. D San Francisco Physician Univ. Penn 1829 

H. Gibbons, Jr., M.D U. S. A Univ. Pacific 1863 

W. P. Gibbons, M.D Alameda Physician Univ. N. Y 1845 

Fred. A. Gibbs Sacramento Merchant Harvard 1850 

J. H. Giles San Jose Clergyman Bristol, Eng 

E. J. Gillespie Sonoma Clei'gyman Cumbei'land Univ 

John R. Glascock Oakland Coll. of Cal 1865 

H. Goodwin San Francisco Clergyman Union 

John N. Goodwin Arizona Governor Ter Dartmouth 1844 

Giles H. Gray San Francisco Lawyer N. Y. Free Acad. 1853 

Henry M. Gray San Francisco Merchant 

Wm. H. Green Stockton Lawyer Bowdoin 1863 

F'rancis a. Grubbs Salem, Or Professor Willamette Univ. 1863 

L. C. GuNN San Francisco Int. Rev. Office ..Columbia 1829 

Hon. F. M. Haight Monterey U. S. Dist. Court. Hamilton 1818 

H. H. Haight San Francisco Lawyer Yale 1844 

Henry Haile, M.D Alameda Physician Middlebury...-..1823 

H. E. Hall Stockton Union 



102 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

Name. Residence. Occupation. College. Year. 

Maj. Gen. H.W. HALLECK.San Francisco U. S. A Union andWestPt 

H. Hamilton Idaho City, I. T Clergyman Univ. Mich 

L. HA3IILT0N Oakland Clergyman Hamilton 1850 

Jos. A. Hann A Corvallis, Or Clergyman 

Eeese Happersett, D.D.Steckton Clergyman 

H. W. Harkness, M.D. . .Sacramento Physician Berkshire Med. . . 1847 

Eev. S. S. Harbion Oakland Prof. Pacific Fe- 
male College. ..Union 1843 

Stephen E. Harris San Francisco Lawyer 

E. C. Harrison San Francisco Lawyer Wesl. Univ 1853 

C. Hartson Napa Lawyer Hamilton 

Horace M. Hastings. ..San Francisco Lawyer Union 1857 

F. W. Hatch, M.D Sacramento. Physician Union 

E. V. Hathaway, M.D . . San Francisco Merchant Brown Univ 

E. F. Head San Francisco Lawyer Harvard Law 1842 

E. P.Henderson Belpassi, Or Teacher Waynesburg 

C. E. Hendrickson, D.D. Stockton Clergyman 

J. W. Hendrie San Francisco Merchant Tale 1851 

H. A. Henry, D.D San Francisco Clergy-man England 1835 

Lewis Hickman Stockton Merchant Coll. N. J 1852 

Hon. Wm. Higby Mok. Hill M. C Univ. Vt 

C. J. HiLLYER Virginia City, Nev. Lawyer Yale 1850 

S. Hilton San Francisco Editor 

A. F. HiNCHMAN San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1845 

J. S. Hittell San Francisco Editor Miami Univ 

T. H. Hittell San Francisco Lawyer Yale 1849 

F. D. Hodgson Oakland Professor Wesl. Univ 1853 

Hon. O. Hoffman San Francisco U. S. Dist. Court- Columbia 

Col. J. P. HoGE San Francisco Lawyer Jeftersou 1829 

Ira G. Hoitt San Francisco Teacher Dirutmouth 1860 

A. HoLBROOK Portland, Or Lawyer 

C. T. Hopkins San Francisco Merchant Univ. Tt 1847 

Versalius Horr 

Hon. D. C. Houghton. ..San Francisco Sin- veyor- General. E ens. Inst 1848 

J. M. Howe Sacramento Teacher 

E. T. Huddart, M.D San Francisco Teacher 

Capt. W. B. Hughes San Francisco U. S. A West Point 

H. E. HuLBURD Western Eeserve 

H. S. Huntington Oakland Clergyman Coll. N.J 1850 

L N. HuRD Eed BluiF Clergyman 

W. H. HuRLBUTT San Francisco Harvard 1847 

Jer. D. Hyde ....Santa Cruz Lawyer Williams 1859 

Alex. Ingram, M.D Monterey U. S. A Dartmouth 1858 

A. E. Jackson 

Elijah Janes Oakland Coll. of Cal 1865 

H. B. Janes San Francisco Lawyer Univ. Yt 1838 

J. E. Jarboe San Francisco Lawyer Yale 1855 

Joel Jennings San Francisco Merchant Williams 

John W, Johnson McMinnville, Or. .Teacher Yale 1862 

Sidney L. Johnson San Francisco Lawyer Yale 1827 

Addison Jones Santa Clara Clergyman Denuison Univ 

Hon. L. F. Jones Mariposa Lawyer Wesl. Univ 1846 

E. E. Jones Eedwood City Waterville 1862 



LIST OF GRADUATES. 103 

Name. Residence. Occupation. College, Year. 

W. L. Jones Eureka Clergyman Bowdoiu 1849 

Ealph Keeler San Francisco Kenyon and Univ. 

Heidelberg 

L. M. Kellogg San Francisco Custom House... Columbia 1848 

Martin Kellogg Oakland Prof. Coll. of Cal.Yale 1850 

Daniel Kendig San Francisco Clergyman Univ. of Penn...l844 

W. S. Keyes San Francisco Yale 1860 

J. M. KiMBERLAiN Santa Clara Professor Dickinson 

Eev. E. M. King Alamo Teacher Nashville Univ 

Calvin S. Kingsley Bannock City, I. T. Clergyman Univ. Mich 

Prof. J. E. Kinney San Jose Teacher Union 1862 

Et. Eev. W. I. Kip, D.D.San Francisco Clergyman Yale 1831 

Maj. E. W. KiRKHAM Oakland U. S. A West Point 

Eev. Kirkland Stockton Teacher Univ. Edinboro 

N. B. Klink Vallejo Clergyman Union 1849 

Eben. Knowlton San Francisco Teacher Amherst 1860 

Edward S. Lacy San Francisco Clergyman Hamilton 1850 

T. H. Laine San Jose Lawyer Univ. Pacific 1858 

Delos Lake San Francisco Lawyer Coll. of Cal., M.A.1865 

J. H. Lander Los Angeles Lawyer Harvard 1849 

John Landesman San Francisco Lawyer 

L. C. Lane, M.D San Francisco Physician 

M. D. Larrowe Austin, Nev Lawyer Yale 1854 

Jos. E. L-Awrence San Francisco Editor Columbia 1842 

B. C. LiPPiNCOTT Oregon Clergyman Dickinson 

Eev. E. S. LiPPiTT Petaluma ...Teacher Wesl. Univ 

H. B. Livingston San Francisco Editor Williams 1844 

J. A. LocKwooD, M.D. ..Napa Physician Union 1830 

T. W. LocKwooD San Francisco Printer .Univ. N. Y. City. 1854 

Eev. A. W. LooMis San Francisco Miss'y to Chinese. Hamilton 1841 

Hon. W. E. LovETT San Juan Lawyer 

A. S. Lowndes San Francisco Merchant Oxford 1848 

James P. Ludlow San Francisco Clergyman Univ. Eochester . 1861 

Louis E. Lull San Francisco Lawyer Univ. Vt 1845 

Samuel L. Lupton San Francisco Lawyer Dickinson 1853 

A. F. Lyle San Francisco Coll. of Cal 1864 

Horace Lyman Forest Grove, Or. -Prof. Pac. Univ.. Williams 

Cutler McAllister. .. San Francisco Lawyer ..Columbia 1854 

F. M. McAllister San Francisco Clergyman Brown Univ 

Hall McAllister San Francisco liawyer Yale 

Capt.JuL'N McAllister. San Francisco U. S. A West Point 

F. J. McCann Marysville Mt. St. Mary's 

J, B. McChesney Nevada City Teacher Union 

Eev. David McClure... Oakland Teacher Delaware 1848 

Johnston McCormac. ..Eugene City, Or. ..Clergyman Trinity 1853 

Robt. McCulloch Sonora Clergyman Belf 'tColl.Irel'd 

Hon. J. G. McCullough Sacramento Attorney General 

C. B. McDonald San Francisco Editor Dickinson 1847 

James S. McDonald Sacramento Clergyman Miami Univ 1859 

Maj. Gen. Irwin McDow- 
ell Oakland U. S. A West Point 

Hon. S. B. McFarl AND.. Nevada City Lawyer 

Hon. S. B. McKee Oakland Lawyer 



104 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

Name. JResidence. Occupation. College. Tear. 

W. E. McKee San Francisco Lawyer 

Louts McLane San Francisco Banker 

Rev. J. McLaughlin Eed Bluff. Teacher Illinois 1857 

W. J. Maclay Napa Clergyman Dickinson 

Edward McLean Oakland Merchant Yale 1843 

JoH N T. McLean, M.D . . San Francisco Surveyor of Port. Wesl. Univ 1845 

J. H. McMonagle San Francisco . .„..U. S. Chaplain. ..Knox 1857 

W. W. Macomber Marysville Clergyman Western Eeserve. 1860 

AzRO L. Mann Marysville Middlebury 1860 

E. K. Marriner Sacramento Teacher Waterville 1855 

S. H. Marsh, D.D Forest Grove Pres't Pac. Univ. Univ. Vt 

H. A. Martin Bear VaUey Univ. N. Y. City.1854 

W. M. Martin Virginia City, Nev. Clergyman Univ. N. Y. City. 1837 

W. W. Martin San Jose Clergyman Yale 1860 

Gen. Mason Arizona U. S. A West Point 

J. S. May San Francisco Lawyer Williams 

Annis Merrill San Francisco Lawyer Wesl. Univ 1835 

Geo. B. Merrill San Francisco LaAvyer Harvard 1859 

Saml. Merritt, M.D. ..Oakland Merchant 

Plon. E. S. Mesick Virginia City, Nev. Lawyer Yale 1848 

Prof. Chas. Miel San Francisco Teacher 

W. G. Millar, M.D Grass Valley Physician Hobart Free 1860 

Charles Miller Oakland Clergyman 

Cyrus T. Mills San Francisco Clergyman Williams 1844 

Geo. W. Minns San Francisco Teacher Harvard 1836 

Geo. Mooar Oakland Clergyman Williams 1851 

Eliot J. Moore San Francisco Lawyer Marietta 1848 

Henry K. Moore San Francisco Lawyer Dartmouth 1861 

James B. Moore San Francisco Merchant Univ. Vt 1842 

Jos. H. Moore San Francisco Lawyer Woodward Law 

J. Preston Moore San Francisco Coll. N.J 

N. W. Moore San Francisco Teacher Brown Univ 

Egbert S. Moore San Francisco Eeporter Yale 1859 

H. H. Morgan Hobart Free 

Jas. Morison, M.D San Francisco Physician Harvard 1844 

Capt. Wm. G. Morris. ..Benicia U. S. A HarvardLaw 1855 

Aug. Morse, Jr Hay ward's Teacher Trinity 

W. C. MosHER Mokelumne Hill. .. Clergyman .. Union 1845 

B. F. MuDGE Benicia Lawyer... Wesl. Univ 1840 

Marion F. Mulkey Portland, Or Lawyer Yale ..1862 

Jas. Naphtaly San Francisco ..Yale 1863 

W. Newcomb, M.D Oakland Physician Castleton Med... 1832 

Hon. A. C. NiLEs Nevada City Lawyer Williams 1852 

Prof. Jas. Nooney San Francisco Mining Engineer. Yale 1838 

Hon. J. W. North Virginia City, Nev. Lawyer Wesl. Univ 1841 

D. B. Northrop San Francisco Lawyer Univ. Vt 1844 

Stephen G. Nye San Leandro Lawyer Alleghany 1858 

Lt. F. O'Byrne San Francisco U. S. A Univ. Ireland 1859 

Aug. W. Oliver San Jos6 Lawyer Bowdoin 1860 

J. C. Olmsted San Francisco Merchant Williams 1860 

F. L. Olmsted Bear Valley Mine Supt 

Williams 1854 

Eens. Institute... 1857 



John Ostrom Virginia City, Nev. Civil Engineer. 



LIST OF GRADUATES. 105 

Name. Residence. Occupation. College. Year. 
Hon. J. W. Owen Petaluma Lawyer Univ. Pacific 18.58 

C. T. H. Palmer Folsom Banker Yale 1847 

D. Henry Palmer Columbia Clergyman Univ. Eoehester . 1860 

Samuel H. Parker San Francisco . . . . .Merchant Coll. of Cal., M.A.1865 

Levi Parsons San Francisco Lawyer 

Peabody, M.D Benicia Physician 

Wm. Pearson San Francisco Custom House. ..Yale 1841 

A. W. Peck VaUejo Clergyman Madison Univ 

Geo. H. Peck San Francisco Merchant Univ. Vt 1837 

J. T. Peck, D.D San Francisco Clergyman 

J. Phelps, D.D San Francisco Clergyman Union 1838 

C. C. Pierce Placerville Clergyman 

Jas. Pierpont Murphy's Clergyman Hamilton 

Geo. Pierson, M.D Brooklyn Clergyman Illinois 1848 

A. E. Pomeroy San Jose Univ. Pacific 

Wm. C. Pond Downieville Clergyman Bowdoin 1848 

Norman Porter San Jose Merchant Union 1844 

Leonard Powell Salem, Or Teacher Delaware 

F^'RANK Power Nevada City Teacher Univ. Mich 1856 

J. E. Prevost San Jose Santa Clara 1861 

E. J. Pringle San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1845 

E. F. Putnam Grass Valley Clergyman 

S. S. Eawson San Francisco Lawyer Waterville 1828 

P. W. S. Eayle Napa Lawyer Missouri Univ 1854 

T. H. Eeardon Virginia City, Nev Kenyon ..1859 

John Eeed Santa Clara Farmer Williams 1848 

C. W. Eees Sierra Valley Clergyman Kalamazoo 

J. M. Eeynolds Placerville Lawyer 

Hon. S. F. Eeynolds San Francisco Lawyer Union 1833 

Hon. A. L. Erodes San Jose Supreme Court... Hamilton 

D. W. C. EiCE, M.D San Francisco Merchant Union 

H. EiCHARDSON Stockton Clergyman Dartmouth 1841 

F. S. EisiNG Virginia City, Nev. Clergyman N. Y. Free Acad 

Hon. EiCHARD S. EisiNG- Virginia City, Nev. Lawyer N. Y. Free Acad 

Alfred Eix San Francisco Lawyer Univ.' Vt 1848 

Jas. Eogers San Francisco Custom House . ..Wesl. Univ 1847 

J. W. Eoss Stockton Clergyman 

Jos. EowELL San Francisco Seamen's Chapl'n.Yale 1848 

W.-K. EowELL Oakland Teacher Dai'tmouth 1855 

D. E. Sample Marysville Lawyer Mich. Univ 

S. S. Sanborn Oakland Teacher Dartmouth 1863 

Hon. S. W. Sanderson... Placerville Chief Just. Sup. Ct 

Charles W. Sanger San Francisco Sec'y S. F. & S. J. 

E. E. Co Union 1856 

Hon. A. A. Sargent Nevada City Lawyer Coll. of Cal., M.A.1865 

H. A. Sawtelle San Francisco Clergyman Watei-^ille 1854 

A. F. Sawyer, M.D San Francisco . ....Physician Harvard 1849 

Hon. L. Sawyer San Francisco Supreme Court 

Arthur W. Saxe, M.D.. Santa Clara Physician Wesl. Univ 

Schultz Oakland Merchant v-.-Univ. Pesth 

H. Scott Portland, Or Editor Pacific Univ 

Wm. H. Scott Grass Valley Oberliu 1861 

H.-M. ScuDDER, D.D San Francisco Clergyman Univ. N. Y. City. 1840 

H 



106 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

Name, Residence. Occupation. College. Year. 

Jas. M. Se awell San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1855 

Col. W. Se AWELL San Francisco U. S. A West Point 

Com. Selfridge San Francisco U. S. N 

John Sessions, D.D Oakland Clergyman Dartmouth 1822 

B. N. Seymour Alvarado Clergyman Williams 1852 

Hon. J. McM. Shafter- . San Francisco Lawyer Wesl. Univ 1838 

Hon.O.L.SHAFTER,LL.D. Oakland Supreme Court. ..Wesl. Univ 

W. H. Sharp San Francisco Lawyer '. 

Hon. E. D. Shattuck . ..Portland, Or Lawyer 

Lewis Shearer San Francisco Lawyer Harvard Law. ..1855 

S. Shearer, Jr San Francisco Teacher Tale 1861 

Hon. Geo. K. Sheil Salem, Or Lawyer Miami Univ 

Eev. H. B. Sheldon San Francisco O. Wesl. Univ... 1851 

Geo. E. Sherman Colusa Coll. of Cal 1865 

J. C. Shore, M.D San Francisco U. S. A St. Mary's - 

J. DeB. Shore San Francisco St. Mary's 

J. M. SiELEY Folsom Yale ,...1843 

E. E. Sill Folsom Banker Tale 1861 

Eev, S. D. SiMONDS San Francisco Teacher 

EoBT. SiMsoN San Francisco Lawyer Columbia 

J. A. Skinner San Francisco Clergyman Hamilton 1857 

N. Slater Liberty Clergyman Union 1831 

J. C. F. Smith San Francisco Amherst 

S. B. Smith Marysville 

Sidney V. Smith, Jr San Francisco Yale 1865 

Wm. M. Smith San Francisco Lawyer Miami Univ 

W. F. Snow Grass VaUey Clergyman Harvard 1861 

E. B. Snowden Nevada City Clergyman Williams 1854 

A. G. SouLE San Francisco Physician Berkshire Med.. .1846 

Frank Soule San Francisco Wesl. Univ 1838 

Hon. J. B. Southard Petaluma Lawyer 

Hon. E. Stanly San Francisco Lawyer Univ. N, C 

M. B. Starr Copperopolis Clergyman 

Alfred Stebbins San Francisco Amherst 1860 

Horatio Stebbins..... -San Francisco Clergyman Harvard 1848 

J. W. Stephenson San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1859 

Capt. Jos. Stewart San Francisco U. S. A West Point 

Wm. a. Stiles Oakland Teacher Tale 1859 

J. D. B. Stillman, M.D. San Francisco Physician Union 1843 

C. A. Stivers, M.D San Francisco Physician Toland Med..:. ..1865 

D. C. Stone Marysville Teacher Marietta 

O. B. Stone San Jose Clergyman Univ. Eochester . 1850 

W. H. Stoy Marysville Clergyman 

Hon. E. E. Stratton Eugene City, Or. ..Lawyer Farmers', O 

Geo. H. Strong San Francisco Dartmouth 1859 

J. D. Strong San Francisco . ... .Clergyman Williams 1849 

Wm. Strong Portland, Or Lawyer Tale 1838 

J. W. Stump Columbia Clergyman 

John Swett San Francisco State Sup. Schools.CoU. of Cal., M.A.1865 

S. I. C. SwEZEY San Francisco Lawyer Coll. of CaL, M.A.1865 

D. E. Sykes Nevada City \ Tale 1833 

L. W. Sykes, M.D Santa Clara -. . Physician Amherst 

Geo. Tait San Francisco School Sup't Univ. Va 



LIST OP GRADUATES. 107 

Name. Residence. Occupation. College. Tear. 

Eev. T. E. Taylor Petaluma H. M. Agent Middlebury 1844 

Jackson Temple Santa Kosa Lawyer Williams 1851 

P. G.S.Tenbroeck, M.D.Washington Ter...U. S. A 

W. A. Tenney El Dorado Clergyman 

A. E. Thayer San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1842 

Lewis Thompson Astoria, Or Clergyman Centre 

I. N.Thorne San Francisco Lawyer Union 

E. H. TiBBiTTs Bowdoin 1848 

W. P. TiLDEN, M.D Stockton Supt. Insane Asy 

H. H. ToLAND, M.D San Francisco Pres. Toland Med. 

College 

Edward Tompkins Oakland Lawyer Union 1834 

E. A. Tompkins, M.D Grass Valley Physician Geneva Med 

C. W. TozER Univ. Mich 

Chas. T. Tracy Downieville Coll. of Cal 1864 

J. B. Trask, M.D San Francisco Physician 

J. P. Tread WELL San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1844 

D. E. Trenor, M.D San Francisco Physician Columbia 1852 

Hon. Geo. Turner Carson City, Nev. -Lawyer Washington 1848 

Henry H. Turner San Francisco Tale ..1858 

W. S. Turner Napa Teacher Asbury Univ 

Rev. D. TuTHiLL Santa Clara Prin. Female Coll. 

Institute Univ. N. Y. City. 1854 

F. TuTHiLL, M.D San Francisco Editor Amherst... 1840 

Edwin Tyler Michigan Bluff. Miner Yale 1848 

Hon. H. B. Underbill . Stockton Lawyer Amherst 

M. G. Upton San Francisco Editor Univ. Dublin 

Prof. W. Van Doren Stockton Teacher 

Capt. J. H. Van VosT San Francisco U. S. A Union and W'st P.1852 

J. C. Van Wyck, M.D... Oakland Physician Univ. Md 1848 

Rev. P. V. Veeder San Francisco Vice President of 

Univ. Coll.... Union 1846 

J. L. Ver Mehr, Ph.D ..Sonoma Clergyman Univ. Leyden 

J. H. VooRHEES San Francisco Coll. N.J 1841 

Chas. Wadsworth, D.D.San Francisco Clergyman Union 1837 

E. Wadsworth, M.D. ..Yreka — Physician 

Hon. Asa Walker Brooklyn Lawyer 

C. C.Wallace Placerville Clergyman Univ. N. Y. City. 1853 

Rev. E. B. Walsworth. Oakland Pres't Pacific Fe- 
male College... Union 1844 

Rev. J. H.Warren San Mateo A. H. M. S. Agent. Knox 1847 

F. H. Waterman San Francisco Univ. Vt 1854 

L. P. Webber Austin, Nev Clergyman Williams 

Geo. G.Webster Forest Hill Banker Yale 1847 

S. T. Wells Brooklyn Clergyman Union 1839 

Wm. R. Wells, M.D Petaluma Physician Harvard ....*. 

C. N. West Santa Cruz Clergyman Alton 

Hon. C. S. Wetherby. ..San Diego Lawyer Miami Univ 

O. C. Wheeler San Francisco Clergyman Madison Univ ...1843 

A. C. Whitcomb San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1847 

A. F. White Carson City, Nov.. Clergy man Wabash 1843 

E. L. White San Francisco Lawyer Harvard 1854 

Wm. White Watsonville Teacher Williams 1858 



LIBKHRY OF CONGRESS 



108 ASSOCIATED ALUMNI OF THE PACIFIC COAi 019 749 397 5 • 

Name.\ Residence. Occupation. College. Year. 

W. P. C. Whiting San Francisco Lawyer Univ. Mich 

Hon. B. C.Whitman Virginia City, Nev- Lawyer Harvard 1846 

Geo. E. Whitney San Francisco Lawyer 

Prof. J. D. Whitney San Francisco State Geologist. . . Yale 1839 

Jas. p. Whitney, M.D. . San Francisco Physician 

Lt. A. C. WiLDRiCK San Francisco U. S. A West Point 

D. E. WiLLES Marysville Clergyman Tale 1850 

Eev. S. H. WiLLEY Oakland V. President Col- 
lege of Cal Dartmouth 1845 

A. Williams San Francisco Clergyman Coll. N. J 

Andrew Williams San Francisco .... .Lawyer Union 1819 

Gardner F. Williams.. Oakland Coll. of Cal 1865 

W. J. G. Williams San Francisco Prof. St. Ignatius 

College 

Maj. R. S. Williamson ..San Francisco U. S. A West Point.. 1 

Chapen Wilson Santa Cruz Lawyer Union 

Chas. a. Wilson San Francisco Amherst 1854 \ 

D. S. Wilson San Francisco Lawyer 

Gen. Jas. Wilson San Francisco Lawyer Middlebury ] 820 

Hon. J. G. Wilson Dalles, Or Lawyer Farmers', O 

Jas. H. Wilson San Francisco Harvard 1860 

S. M. Wilson San Francisco Lawyer 

J. W. WiNANS San Francisco Lawyer Columbia 

Chas. Wittram San Francisco Lawyer Union 1850 

S. WooDBRiDGE, D.D Benicia Clergyman Union 1830 

Maj. Saml. Woods Oakland U. S. A West Point 

Luther T. Woodward. Jacksonville, Or. . . Clergyman Wabash 1847 

C. K. Wright Downieville. Middlebury 

Gen. Geo. Wright Sacramento U. S. A West Point 

C. B. Wyatt San Francisco Clergyman 

Hon. J. E. Wyche Washington Ter. ..U. S. Judge Granville 

Jas. S.Wylie Bloomfield Clergyman Coll. of X.J 1861 

John Wylie Eugene City, Or. ..Clergyman College N. J 1862 

Richard Wylie Corvallis, Or Clergyman College N.J 1861 

H. N. Wyman San Francisco Amherst * 

J. H.Wythe, M.D San Francisco • Clergyman 

R. S. Young, M.D San Francisco Physician Harvard 1833 






